Tenders are to be floated internationally
Southern Highway 2 July, 2010 - Bhutanese contractors have about a month to tie up with their counterparts abroad, should they wish to participate in building the 190-km road, split between east and west, along sections of the southern foothills.
Following the feasibility study of four national highways, including a feeder road, the roads department under works and human settlement ministry will soon float tenders worth USD 55M as per the approved Asian development bank (ADB) grant.
The four highways comprise the 37 km Manitar-Raidak road under Chukha dzongkhag, 20 km between Raidak and Lhamoizingkha under Dagana, 55 km between Pangbang and Nganglam, and 21 km Samdrupcholing-Samrang road. The 57 km feeder road will connect Tsebar and Mikuri.
The highway constructions also include spanning four major bridges and 25 small and medium ones. The longest, between Manitar and Raidak will be about 150 m long.
The project team leader and consultant Kim Howard said the projects would be thrown to international competitive bidding, and not just confined to local contractors.
“The ideal arrangement will be for local contractors associating with the international firms,” he said, adding that, while Bhutanese would have the local knowledge and experience for foreign investors coming to work in an entirely different topography and system, they in turn could gain much from expertise and new equipment foreign firms would bring.
Kim Howard also said the bidding process was only about 45 days away, within which time, local contractors had to call, email and discuss with their foreign partners to reach an agreement. “The bids for the five roads will begin sometime in August or September, one at a time,” Howard said.
Track records, human resources, capital and equipment of both foreign and local contractors would be scrutinised in the bid evaluation.
The highway linking Lhamoizingkha is a particularly crucial one, as it is in the government’s program to tap into the Kerabari river and turn it into one of world’s biggest hydro power projects. “That’s one reason to fast-track this road,” Howard said.
So far Bhutanese had to travel for hours along bordering Indian roads and back into the national highway to reach Lhamoizingkha.
Although the road to Lhamoizingha was built some 22 years ago, it was blocked just as soon by heavy mudslides and it continues to remain blocked.
Howard said cars could travel only up 16 km before hitting a dead-end.
He said people did not know about drainages and slides then, which today served as a lesson for international consultants with limited budget, to use good designs and standard materials, if similar calamities were to be avoided.
Deflecting from the usual norm of contractors procuring their own materials for the roads and bridges, the consultant said they were going to do most of the procurement works through international tender.
“We’ll place specific orders on most steel materials of international quality,” Howard said. Clubbed under one big project, he said, companies from South Africa, Canada, India and the USA were showing interest already.
“That way, we’ll have one standard and uniformity,” he said.
The works on roads, which will begin this coming dry season, have three years each for completion.
“If we lose this dry season, we’ll be entering the next monsoon,” he said, adding that most roads would be trafficable before full completion.
New construction materials and innovative techniques, he said, would be used to fast track works, which was crucial given the immense social, commercial and national benefits.
Social benefits, Kim Howard said, in terms of shortened walking distances for farmers from the market and commercial from the hydro-power project that is in the pipeline and through tourism which Lhamoizingkha had to offer in plenty in terms of the wildlife attraction.
“Above all, the nation would gain in terms of infrastructure,” he said, adding the highway construction along the southern foothills, both from the east and the west would ease the government’s intentions to build a national east-west route within the nation’s boundary.
Source: kuenselonline.com |
|
| |
|
|
|
