New norms: Highways ministry to give DPR work based on firms' ratings, maximum bank guarantee
NEW DELHI: The road transport and highways ministry will now give higher scores to project consultancy firms, who have better ratings based on their previous works, and submit the maximum bank guarantee (BG) as it does away with the age-old norm of lowest price (L1) bid for preparing the detailed project reports (DPRs).
As per the new proposed norm, bidders will be assessed on three parameters — 30 marks for technical competence, 30 marks for DPR rating and 40 marks for BG quote. Sources said by submitting higher BG, players will take the risk of losing some of it for non-performance. 'So, only those serious players who are confident of completing the task in time will bid. So far, we have faced the problem of plenty. Now, we need to get the best bidder to carry out the tasks,' said a senior ministry official.
A DPR is a comprehensive blueprint for any project, outlining all technical, financial and logistics details necessary for its execution.
For decades, highway owning agencies had been following the 'Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS)' with an 80:20 ratio — technical proposals evaluated with 80% weightage and and financial bids evaluated with 20% — to bid out consultancy works. Last Sept, NHAI started bidding out consultancy works by setting a fixed cost for the project, and companies having the best technical competence bagged the works.
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The ministry has now bettered this process by adding scores for ratings for consultancy firms and quantum of BG.
For rating of consultancy firms, the ministry has said this will be done for projects where 180 days have elapsed after the appointed date; for projects wherein provisional completion or completion has been issued; and for four-six lane projects longer than 10 km and two-lane projects longer than 25 km.
The ministry said this will help in assessment of actual performance of DPR firms in objective terms and help identify performers and non-performers. Rating exercise shall be done twice in a year.
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