New Delhi: India National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has updated the provisions of RFP to improve the quality of highway projects, delay restrictions and reducing the cost of life cycle by tightening the qualification standards of the supplier, strengthening compliance and increasing financial transparency.
Strict conditions in various provisions within RFP will help ensure that only technically capable and experienced suppliers qualify for the implementation of national highway projects, the Ministry of Road Transport and Motorway (Morth) on Wednesday.
The application for a proposal, or RFP, is a formal document that calls on offers from suppliers or sellers to carry out a project, outline the requirements, conditions and criteria of evaluation.
One of the important elements of the provisions is to clarify the criteria of “similar work” in the qualification of the offer, which suppliers have often distorted to gain capacity for extensive highway projects, although they have experience only in smaller or peripheral works that do not reflect the complexity and extent of full -fledged highway development.
Nhai has now explained that “similar work” refers solely to completed highway projects, which include all the main components comparable to those required for the project for which the offer was invited.
In addition to improving the qualification criteria, RFP clarification is also trying to deal with unauthorized involvement of EPC suppliers (engineering, public procurement and buildings) in Ham & Bot (tolls) and subcontractors in EPC projects. Cases have been observed where concessionaries or selected applicants involved the suppliers without the required previous Nhai approval or exceeded the permissible limits of subcontractors, the statement said.
Speeding up
According to Ham or Hybrid Annuity Model, the highway is developed in a partnership of the public and private sectors. This model, introduced by Nhai, mixes the annuity functions of EPC and Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) to speed up road development.
The practice of involvement of suppliers without Nhai approval or exceeding subcontracting limits not only violates contractual standards, but also represents the risks for ensuring the quality, project timing and regulatory supervision. Any unauthorized subcontractors’ subcontractors and subcontractors outside the permissible limits will be classified as “undesirable practice”, thus attracting sentences at the same level as fraudulent practices. This step will help strengthen the discipline in carrying out the contract and protect the integrity of the implementing process.
Another main part of the reform includes disabling the submission of “offer and performance securities”, which come from third parties. It has been reported that some selected candidates provided financial securities issued by third parties, undermining the principle of responsibility and raising concerns about the enforceability and responsibility for the applicants. It has now been clarified that such tools from third parties prohibit, which ensures that the ministry stated that only securities supported by the applicant or its approved entities are accepted. This step is expected to strengthen financial transparency and improve contractual obligations.
The RFP update will help ensure that national highway projects are awarded to suppliers with proven technical and financial competences, carried out by authorized and responsible entities and monitored with greater regulatory supervision. These measures will ensure the quality of infrastructure, timely completion of projects and optimal use of public resources, thus contributing to the development of a more efficient national highway network, the Ministry of Road said.
(Tagstotranslate) National motorway projects
