Govt may invite new bids for Shivaji memorial

The state government is likely to invite bids again to appoint a contractor for the construction of phase one of the grand memorial to Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji after the bids it received were much higher than expected.

According to a source, there are also worries that the budget is likely to shoot up further.

The government estimated that the project in the Arabian sea off Mumbai coast would cost around Rs3,500 crore.

It anticipated that the first leg of the project would cost between Rs2,300 crore and Rs2,500 crore and the second phase is likely to cost about Rs1,000 crore.

However, the lowest bidder quoted over Rs1,500 crore more than the estimated cost.

The government is now considering to renegotiate with the lowest bidder or invite bids again so that the bidding amount would come down.

It is also planning wider publicity to attract more bidders for the project so that competition could force bidders to reduce prices.

When the bids were opened by the public works department last Saturday, the government found the lowest tender by Larsen & Toubro Limited, at Rs3,826 crore and Shapoorji Palonji Group at Rs4,779 crore.

“We will first negotiate with L&T to check if we could arrive at the amicable quotation. In case the talks fail, we will go for the re-tendering,” said Vinayak Mete, who heads the committee that overlooks the project.

“I think we failed to get a wider response from the players at the global level in the first attempt. With more competition, we may bring down the cost quoted,” Mete added.

The final decision over the appointment of the company will be taken by the high power committee headed by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

According to an official from the general administration department, the gap between the government’s estimate and the quotation may be owing to the lapses in the estimation.

“As this is the first-of-its-kind project, the estimation might have gone wrong leading to a much higher quotation by the lowest bidder. The companies qualified for the financial bid had submitted jeep-loads of documents to prove their quotation. In such a scenario, the cost is likely to remain high even after the re-bidding,” he added.

The project was conceived in the 1980s and has been a talking point for all political parties ever since.

Boats to Carry visitors from Nariman Point And Gateway of India. The statue is 12km By sea from Gateway, 3.5km from Nariman Point

have An Art museum, Amphitheatre, marine Aquarium And galleries, And facilities such As A Cafeteria, medical facilities, stalls, wastewater treatment And A Berthing jetty for tourists

The entire memorial will be 210 metres tall, close to over 80-storey structure, built entirely in the sea on an islet of 15.96 hectares.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi conducted a groundbreak ing ceremony for the ambitious project last December, in the run-up to elections to Mumbai’s civic body and pacify the rest less Maratha community which was protesting for quotas in government jobs and educa tion