BMC adopts e-tendering method for road contracts

In a bid to bring in transparency in awarding road contracts, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to go for e-tendering method only.
Municipal Commissioner Ajoy Mehta today issued directives to the civic officers in this regard, a senior official said.
As per the new system, the contractors do not need to submit even a single document in the hard copy to BMC. "Since the entire process is now online, the tendering process would become transparent," an official statement said.
The order has been issued by the Commissioner to ensure more transparency and greater participation from the applicants, it said adding, "Now the contractors would be mandated to appoint at least one quality controller engineer, who would be supervising the work being carried out by the contractor."

"Earlier, contractors were required to submit a scanned copy of the demand draft of Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) and and Additional Security Deposit (ASD), in the absence of which their names were not listed in the tendering process. But now this process has been scrapped and entire process has become online," it added.
Last month, the civic chief had launched a crackdown on dubious contractors.
Experts in the field alleged that due to the tweaked tendering conditions, blacklisted and tainted contractors form fixed cartels used to bag contracts every year and deliver shoddy and sub-standard work leaving city's roads dotted with potholes.

Last week, a group of contractors had unanimously demanded BMC to draw a new tendering department and guidelines to clean the process.