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Following this, the authority issued the second call for bids on September 14, with submission deadline ending October 13. The delay in finding an appropriate contractor will push the project further behind schedule, which was revised upward to ensure its completion by June 30, 2028.

“In the first call, the Concessionaire did not accept the letter of award. They did not quote any reason for this. As a result, the bid security of Rs 14.76 crore was encashed as per provisions of the request for proposal. New bids have been invited and NHAI is making all efforts to complete the project expeditiously,” said a senior NHAI official. The official also said that to prevent aggressive bidding, the authority issued a circular on July 15 to take additional performance guarantees from the bidders.

Acting on the report, NHAI terminated the package-8 con-tract again and invited fresh bids on January 23 for the section’s balance work, which has only seen 4.85% completion till date.

The records show that a total of nine companies were evaluated at the technical stage and four were rejected or declared non-responsive, including RSIIL. Apart from Bansal Constructions, Ashoka Buildcon Ltd, Ceigall India Ltd, G R Infraprojects Ltd, and Kalthia Engineering and Construction Ltd participated in the financial bidding. The second lowest bidder was Ceigall India that had quoted Rs 1,581 crore for the project.

RSIIL had challenged the highway authority’s two technical evaluation results dated June 25 and July 31 in the Delhi High Court after its bid was declared “non-responsive”. In an order dated July 3, the court had directed NHAI to evaluate the technical bid after duly considering RSIIL’s provisional completion certificate (PCC).

Later, in another order dated August 21, where RSIIL had again challenged NHAI’s results to declare it ‘Non-Responsive’ on the ground that it fails to meet the additional work criteria (Bridges), the court rejected the contractor’s pleas, finding it without merit.

Apart from package-8, NHAI had terminated the contract of package-9 as well, which is a 26.6-km section from Karvad to Jujuwa in Valsad, on account of the contractor’s poor performance. This stretch is around 22% complete to date. The authority invited bids on May 27 with estimated cost of Rs. 874 crore for the completion of balance work, with submission deadline ending July 14. The technical bid of this stretch is in progress.

The 24.6 km package-10 (Talasari to Karwad) is also running much behind schedule, with only 36.23% physical progress so far, where NHAI had issued an intention to terminate notice to the concessionaire on account of poor performance.

The 246-km Delhi-Dausa-Lalsot stretch in Rajasthan was the first completed section, which was inaugurated on February 12, 2023. This was followed by the 87-km Vadodara-Bharuch stretch in Gujarat in February 2024. The 245-km Jhalwar-Ratlam-MP/Gujarat border was also opened to traffic.