A whopping 5,477 tenders were floated for road projects from July 2005 through June 2006. This accounted for around one-third of the 16,155 project-related tenders issued in the country during the period, says ProjectsToday. Madhya Pradesh had 730 road tenders, Chhattisgarh 729, Maharashtra 728, Tamil Nadu 653 and Andhra Pradesh 519. These five states together accounted for 61 per cent of the tenders kick-starting capital works in the road sector.
State governments, urban local bodies, state industrial and road development corporations and rural road development agencies invited most number of tenders. National Highways Authority of India floated 104 tenders for carrying out comparatively large capital works under NHDP. Some major NHAI tenders included the Rs 2,445-crore BOT tender for Tamil Nadu-Pondicherry GT under NHDP Phase IIIA issued in December last year; Rs 604-crore BOT tender for Gwalior-Jhansi NH-75; Rs 480-crore BOT tender for Muzaffarnagar-Haridwar NH-59 project in February-March 2006; and an invitation for consultancy services for feasibility-cum-preliminary design report for Vadodara-Mumbai expressway on BOT (DBFO) basis issued last month.
Among the tenders issued by state-level agencies, the Rs 2,850-crore BOT tender for pre-qualification applications for the Western Freeway Sea Link (Mumbai) Project and the Rs 675-crore BOT tender for the Sion-Panvel Highway Project in April-May last, both floated by Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation; and the Rs 380-crore tender floated by Andhra Pradesh Road Development Corporation for construction of a major bridge across Godavari river connecting Rajahmundry Municipal Corporation and Kovvur Municipality on BOT basis in June last, were noteworthy.