Jain proposes changes in hiring consultant architects

The Delhi government plans to change the method to pick consultant architects for its projects but the public works and finance departments have objected saying the proposed changes would hit "fairness" and encourage favouritism.
It is learnt that PWD Minister Satyender Jain has proposed to abolish the widely used (Quality and Cost-Based Selection) system and also cap the number of projects that can be awarded to a particular agency.
The proposal seeks to do away with the financial bid aspect and give entire weightage to quality.
"Left to quality based selection of consultant for construction projects, it is nearly certain that the practice will quickly deteriorate into pick and choose policy, compromising fairness and giving rise to controversy and complaints," a PWD department note said.

Under the existing guidelines, while awarding architectural consultancy work, which is the first stage of executing any project, 70 per cent weightage is given to quality and 30 per cent to cost.
Also, the existing consultancy rates prevalent in PWD are in the range of 0.18 to 1.52 per cent of the project cost while Jain's proposal pegs it at a flat 2 per cent which has been described as "arbitrary" and on the "higher side".

Government sources said the officials of the PWD as well as the Finance Department objected to the proposal saying it would lead to losses to the public exchequer and deterioration in the quality of work as "subjectivity" would creep in while awarding work.

In its note, the PWD department wrote that financial bid brings fairness in decision making process.
"By doing away with the financial clause, one would not know the real cost of performing the work and it would not be in tune with the market," a senior official said.