With corruption charges flying high, the government has decided to move to electronic bidding of highway projects.For the first time since its inception, the National Highways Authority of India will start e-tendering of projects from April.
NHAI awards projects worth Rs. 20,000 crore (Rs. 200 billion) every year. Officials said e-bidding will make the process more transparent.
"We will start electronic tendering of projects from April 1. To start with, we will not completely shift to the electronic system, but will have to do so gradually," said a senior NHAI official.
The official added that there was no timeline for the transition to the electronic system but will happen as soon as possible.
The change in the bidding process comes on the heels of C P Joshi taking charge as the road transport and highway minister.
In the past, there have been issues with the bidding system, with various companies complaining of irregularities.
A recent controversy was with the bidding of a project in Madhya Pradesh, where there were complaints of irregularities in the bidding process to favour a select few.
The complaint led to a Central Bureau of Investigation probe and a subsequent raid at the authority's headquarters in Delhi.
Two NHAI officials - a chief general manager and a general manager - and two executives of a Delhi-based infrastructure company, Oriental Structures, were arrested.
They were later released because the CBI could not file a chargesheet within the stipulated period.
NHAI has approached the National Informatics Centre to build the of platform for electronic bidding and are hopeful that NIC will create the new portal soon.
The industry has welcomed the initiative and feels this would help weed out corruption in the system.
"With lots of projects lined up, the whole bidding process is at times manipulated to favour one company or the other, which will get abolished with the electronic system," said an executive of an infrastructure company involved in building highways.
NHAI has also recently decided to make the bidding process less complex by making one Request for Qualification document valid for a year, instead of submitting the document every time one bids for the project.
NHAI has got new targets to award 100 projects covering 11,151 km in the next financial year, which the highways authority is hopeful of achieving.
The ministry under Joshi has also decided to discourage awarding projects on the annuity mode of building roads but on engineering-procurement-construction.
