By IANS,
Hyderabad : The Andhra Pradesh government has invited fresh global bids for the Rs.121-billion ($2.4-billion) Hyderabad Metro Rail project in a public-private partnership (PPP) mode.
The notification issued late Thursday by Municipal Administration and Urban Development Principal Secretary C.V.S.K. Sarma said the bid documents would be available from July 21.
The last date for submitting applications for pre-qualification is Sep 7.
The fresh bids were invited after the government July 7 scrapped the earlier contract awarded to a consortium led by Maytas Infrastructure, a firm owned by the family of B. Ramalinga Raju, the disgraced founder and former chairman of Satyam Computer Services, after it failed to achieve the financial closure by the extended deadline.
The Maytas-led consortium held 52 percent and the state government 16 percent equity in the project.
According to the latest notification, the indicative cost of the project is Rs.12,132 crore (Rs.121.32 billion). The elevated metro rail project will be executed on design, build, finance, operate and transfer basis.
Officials said the companies participating in the bids have to pass through pre-qualification bidding before being allowed to participate in technical and financial bidding.
Thursday’s notification was issued four days after the government decided to invite fresh global tenders. This followed the scrapping of the agreement signed with the Maytas Infra-led consortium.
Municipal Administration Minister Aanam Ramanarayana Reddy had Monday announced that the process of selecting a new developer would be completed by Nov 15.
Earlier, when scrapping the Maytas contract, the government had forfeited the Rs.71 crore (Rs.710 million) deposited by the consortium as performance guarantee, and as advance towards the Rs.30,311 crore (Rs.303.11 billion) it promised to pay over the concession period of 35 years.
The government this time has decided to double the performance guarantee money. The company being awarded the contract will have to deposit one percent of the total cost as performance guarantee.
Earlier it was half a percent.
The three other consortiums to have qualified in the earlier process will have to start afresh and will not be given any preference, officials said.
The other three consortiums which had cleared the technical bids earlier were led by Essar Constructions, Malaysia’s Magna Allmore, and Reliance Infrastructure. The fourth, led by GVK, had backed out.
The central government had granted 20 percent of the cost (Rs.23.63 billion/Rs.2,363 crore) as Viability Gap Funding (VGF) — a scheme aimed at reducing capital cost of projects by credit enhancements.
Though Maytas had refused to avail of this, the government said the fund can still be used.
The government is hopeful that the three-route, 71-km project will be completed in three to four years.