Pvt players get 2 more months to submit bids

Principal Secretary for Housing Srikrishna confirmed the extension of date. This was the third time that the date for submission of bids was extended. The initial date was January 10.

These projects include construction of an international convention centre,a cricket stadium-cum-sports complex,super-specialty hospitals in Lucknow and Kanpur,an inner ring road,a multi-specialty hospital in Agra,multi-level car parking in Allahabad,an auditorium and three multi-level car parks in Ghaziabad,two underground parking lots and a Transport Nagar in Varanasi. “In the next two months,two consultants — Sri Infrastructure Finance Limited and Darashaw and Company Private Limited — will coordinate with interested developers. The government is the facilitator and Awas Bandhu the nodal agency for these projects,” said an official.

In 2008,the government had finalised 41 projects worth Rs 11,997 for eight cities under IURP. The projects were to be executed on the public-private partnership model. In November 2008,the government had received 309 technical bids and short-listed 110 developers to submit request for proposals.

In December,the Cabinet had approved 14 of these projects and invited RFPs till January 10. But no developers turned up. The officials blamed the economic slowdown as the reason behind the lack of interest.

On January 31,the officials held a meeting with the developers. After the meeting,February 12 was fixed as the deadline for the submission of bids. “Earlier,it was decided that after the completion of the projects,developers could run the establishments for the next 35 years to recover their investment. But on the request of developers,the time period has been extended to 50 years in case of multi-level parking and Transport Nagar,” an official said.