RAWALPINDI: After giving direct contract of the Rawalpindi Ring Road project to the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) has decided to hold a competition between the FWO and the National Logistics Cell (NLC) for the Kutchery Chowk remodeling project worth Rs3.99 billion.

RDA Chief Engineer Dr Habibul Haq Randhawa has written a letter to the two organisations to participate in the direct contracting for the remodeling of Kutchery Chowk on April 7.

“In pursuance of approval by the Head procuring agency/authority, you are hereby requested to participate in direct contracting as per PPRA Rules 59(e) for the subject work,” it stated.

Under Rule 59(e), a procuring agency can engage an organisation, semi-autonomous or autonomous institution under the administrative control of the federal or provincial government if the project is time-bound or sensitive and its information cannot be shared with the private sector.

RDA has already directly contracted Ring Road project to Frontier Works Organisation

The government organisation engaged for the procurement shall accomplish the task exclusively through its own resources without involving the private sector as a partner, joint venture or as a sub-contractor.

In the letter, the RDA chief engineer said the FWO and NLC were requested to receive the tender documents from his office and submit it to his office with technical (in-house capacity) and financial bid in two separate sealed envelopes by 2pm on April 7.

The letter said the firm should have an average annual construction turnover of Rs5 billion and a minimum networking capital of Rs6 billion during the financial year 2020-21 besides at least two annual audit reports in the last 10 years.

It said the firm should have completed projects of similar nature with accumulative costing of Rs4 billion or above in the last 10 years. Firms/partners/directors must not be blacklisted.

The firms/partners/directors must not have gone into plea bargain with NAB or any other agency.

Any information provided in the documents if proved or found fake/forged at any stage will lead to cancellation of the application in pre-qualification.

The firm must provide ownership of at least one computerised asphalt plant 100 tonnes capacity and relevant equipment and it must provide ownership of at least two computerised concrete batching plants 30 CuM/hr capacity

When contacted by Dawn, the RDA chief engineer confirmed direct contracting of the project and said earlier submission of the financial bids had been fixed for April 2 but later the date was changed to April 7.

The total cost of the project is Rs4.99 billion.

The construction cost comes to Rs3.994 billion while Rs135 million will be spent on shifting of utility services, including telephone, natural gas and electricity lines. Moreover, Rs5 million have been allocated for traffic maintenance and other works while Rs387 million for land acquisition in the limits of the cantonment areas.

According to the approved plan of the Punjab government, Rs4.4 million have been allocated for private land acquisition measuring 5.67 marlas and Rs347 for cantonment and military land measuring 88.60 marlas.

According to the RDA plan, the main square will be made signal-free and will have a two-storey flyover. According to data, more than 300,000 vehicles pass through this road daily and face gridlocks, especially due to frequent VIP movements.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2022