For the second time this month, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has extended the deadline of its ambitious Rs 2,368 crore tender which was floated for appointing a contractor to remove solid waste that are currently lying untreated at the Deonar dumpsite through the scientific method of bio-remediation within three years. The Deonar dumpsite is one of the sites that have been selected by the state government for constructing housing tenements for the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP)-a venture steered by the Adani group and Maharashtra government's Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA). The tender was floated on May 14, and the initial deadline was set up at June 3, which was later revised to June 23. Meanwhile, the new deadline stands at July 1. A total of 21 bidders have shown interest in the project. However, till date BMC officials said that no formal bid was submitted by any of the 21 interested parties that had evinced interest in the project. Civic officials said that the primary reason behind the extension is mainly due to the queries that are being submitted by bidders. “Just because 21 firms have shown interest doesn’t mean that all of them will submit their bids and unless we get an adequate number of bidders to submit their bids the deadline will be extended because we want to have competitive pricing,” the official added. At present, the Deonar dumpsite houses 1.85 crore metric tonnes (MT) of legacy waste which are stacked on piles forming large mounds rising upto a height of 40 metres. In its tender document, the BMC has maintained that a total 271-acre portion of the larger 311-acre dumpsite will be cleared. “The queries raised by officials were mainly related to logistical challenges. A large number of them shared their concern about how such a large pile of legacy waste could be cleared within a three-year period especially because in Mumbai monsoon is there for four months. So, the contractor will lose 12-months within the total 36-month contract since this process can’t be executed during the rainy season. So technically, the appointed contractor will get a 24-month window to complete the work,” a civic official told the Indian Express. The officials said that all the contractors who have submitted queries are Indian firms associated with solid waste management (SWM). Some of these firms are based out of Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The BMC’s move of floating a tender to clear the dumpsite also came seven months after the state government in October last year earmarked 124-acre of the Deonar dumpsite for constructing housing tenements for the DRP which is being executed by a special purpose vehicle-Navbharat Mega Developers Private Limited (NMDPL)-where the Adani Properties Private Limited (APPL) holds 80% of the stake, while the remaining 20% is with SRA.
