Fresh bids invited for Jaipur project after Reliance Infra pullout

The Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) will invite bids afresh for developing the 143-km Ring Road project in the Pink City, a senior official from the civic authority said here today.

JDA is the controlling authority for all master plans of Jaipur. The move to call for re-bids is a result of the original project winner, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd, deciding not to make the Rs 2,700 crore reserve payment as the project cost had escalated.

“They (Reliance Infrastructure) don’t want to make the reserve payment. They came under a tender and were the sole bidder. The project has not been abandoned. We will call for fresh bids in some time,” the official said.

He did not explain what the ‘reserve payment’ clause was, stopping at saying that the procedure for the “project is a long one”. He said there was no plan to ban Reliance Infrastructure from bidding afresh.

The Reliance Infrastructure spokesperson did not take calls. Within three minutes of the 11:16 am news of the company opting out of the Jaipur project, the share price fell to Rs 896.20 on the National Stock Exchange from Rs 901.65. The share, however, recovered some losses and was trading at Rs 900.60 at 12:13 pm, up nearly 1 per cent from close Friday.

The company’s name was changed after the group set up Reliance Power Ltd to execute its new power generation projects though Reliance Infrastructure itself still operates five power projects totalling 940.59 Mw. Reliance Infrastructure had submitted the draft report for the project and was ready with the detailed one, before it decided not to go ahead with the Rs 2,700 crore payment.