Chennai: The Greater Chennai Corporation plans to remove several roads from a list of 1,010 roads called tenders.
The reason is that some of these roads are placed in the last three years, according to corporate officials.
This step emerged after the city-based NGO Iakkam raised fears over the tender.
NGOs said several roads such as Nelson Manickam Road had been included in the tender were placed in 2019.
The whole road chosen must be assessed, the NGO said.
The corporation also plans to reduce work experience from 40% to 30% for contractors.
Recently, the Civic Agency called for 118 tenders to deliver 1,010 roads – which were damaged by floods – at Rs 147 Crore.
In tender conditions, for all tenders, 40% of work experience is sought in one job for the past five years, the NGO said.
For example, a work for RS 1 Crore is looking for an experience of Rs 40 Lakh in one tender.
“This might be expanded to 12 years at least so that the experience of five years before the government period was also calculated,” said Jayaram Venkatsan, NGO Convention.
He added that there was no penalty provision for poor road work.
He said the three-year accountability period would not help.
Conditions specifically using a 9M paver sensor can be deleted.
“We have seen a lot of stretches that pavers not used at all in the past.
This means that it is only a condition added to ensure a specific contractor is awarded tender,” he said.
Another concern is the height of the road.
“The corporation needs to ensure that the road height does not rise when these new streets are placed.
In some areas, according to the condition of the tender, the road height must have increased 45mm despite the grinding.
What needs to be examined,” NGO said.
A civilian body official said they had noted about this problem and would issue Korrigendum.
“We cannot eliminate the condition of the 9m sensor paver because they must be used to improve the quality of the road.
However, we will ensure that they are implemented.
We will delete several roads and do patch work there.
Also, we will reduce work experience from 40% to 30%, “said the official.
The official added that they would ensure that the road placed would be of good quality and would be monitored at each stage.