RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) will arrange a competition between National Logistics Cell (NLC) and the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) for the award of the contract to one of them for the construction of the Rawalpindi Ring Road from Rawat to Thalian.

On Tuesday, RDA Chief Engineer Dr Habib Randhawa wrote a letter to FWO and NLC to participate in the direct contracting as per PPRA Rules 59(e) for the construction of the 24 km ring road worth Rs24 billion.

“The competition between two government construction agencies will likely be held on Monday (March 14),” the letter said.

It stated that the earnest money at the rate of 2pc of the estimated cost - Rs462,368,227 - in the shape of CDR in favour of the director (admin and finance) RDA must be submitted.

A senior official of the Punjab government told Dawn that due to the sensitive location of the area the provincial government had decided to award the contract to a government construction agency.

He said the government organisation engaged for the procurement shall accomplish the task exclusively through its own resources without involving the private sector asa partner or in the form of a joint venture or as a subcontractor.

He said that NLC and FWO were requested to receive the tender documents of Rawalpindi Ring Road from RDA offices by March 12 and submit them along with a financial bid in two separate sealed envelopes by 2pm on March 14.

“Strict rules have been adopted for awarding the contract as the company must have experience of development, installation, testing, commissioning and operations of intelligent transport system(ITS) worth at least Rs800 million,” he said.

He said that the contractor company should have the capacity to implement building information modelling (BIM) for interchanges’ construction.

“In this regard, experience of implementation of the BIM model worth Rs2 billion is required,” he said.

He said all equipment required for the project must be owned by the contractor company itself. He said that there was a requirement that the company had completed at least five projects with similar complexity i.e. fenced highway or fenced motorways, including interchanges and flyovers completed in the last 10 years of at least Rs25 billion.

“Two projects with similar complexity i.e. highways or motorways including interchanges and flyovers in hand at least Rs15 Billion,” he said.

He said the company should have an average annual construction turnover of minimum Rs30 billion during the Financial Year 2020-21 and have a minimum networking capital of Rs40 billion during the Financial Year 2020-21.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2022