India - BTOR, C.S. Nawathe, Highway Engineer, NDO, Gujarat Rural Roads Project

 69744 WORLD BANI< OFFICE HEMORANDUM Date: October b, 1987 _ To: Hr. E. McCarthy, Division Chief, AS4TE Through: t".r. Michael Baxter, Chief, AS4NA I f / I :( From:FC. S.';J"awathe, Highway Engineer, NDO Subject: Sujarat Rural Roads Project (Cr. 1757-IN). Back to Office Report 1. I visited Gujarat on September 28 through 30, 1987, reviewed progress and held discussions with Messrs. Ka8dar, Secretary, R&BDJ Trivedi, CEJ Parekh, SE, RRC and OSD PPM Cell and their field staff. Mi •• lon'. flndinos and ~ain issues arising out the disCussions are sum~arised below. 2. Drought has affected all the seven districts covered in the Bank project. Mr. Kamdar, Secretary R&B Department, has expressed his appreciatin for the Bank's offer to increase the percentage of disbursement during the prevalent drought conditions in Gujarat. He wants ~e to convey this to the Bank's management. He has also informed Gal, that GOG would spend about Rs. 150 H during the Bank's current FY ending on 30th June, 1988. 3. Although during the current financial year (April 87-f1arch 88), GOG has given funds totalling Rs. 70 H for executing civil works under the project, expenditure so far is negligible as no Marks are physically started so fart for the 266 jobs included in the state's annual budget for FYB8. 60G's progr~ fo~ the procurement of civil works is given in Attachment 1. The work on the jobs under the first 9 packages will start by the end of October 1987. The Department has prequalified contractors for these packages. Of the 106 contractors who purchased the docueents, 44 contractors submitted their bids. Ouring scrutiny of the papers, 12 contractors failed to qualify. Tender bids from the prequalified contractors were opened on October 1, 1987. The Chief Enginear h.il-s- profllised to finalise the contracts by October 15, 1987. For the second batch of 8 packages, the saMe procedure of concurrent prequalification is being adopted. For refllaining 4b packages for 190 jobs, contr~ctors~ill be prequalified in advance. However, for all future procureaents,p04t qualific~tion procedure. outlined in para 5 ~ the aide ~ir. dated May ~5-30f 1987 will be followed. 4. GOG has taken steps to include 291 jobs (totalling about 1000 ka. and estia.ted to cost Rs. 323 _illion) in the next year's budget. These jobs can be started only in April 1988. For aany of these jobs detailed engineering is already started. Second batch of uMbrella adainiatrative approval will cover all these jobs. On the. whole, next year's (FY 89- 4/88-3/89) targets for expenditure on civil works would be about Rs. 220 .11lion. These are about 20% higher than th. appraisal estiaates.  faoe 2 5. Although the Hay 1987 mission advised GOG on further steps required in finalising the QRG'. proposal and ~fer of technical assistance for project .onitoring, there i . no progre•• on finalising the is5Ues by IMltual agrtHHnent.. Hr. Trivedi, CE ha!l however proaised the .ission that the proposals would be finalised before 15th October. 6. 606 has general I y accepted the draft doculftef1ts sent to th&lll in connection with consul tancy contracts for .ilintenance planning study. GOG now agrees that thi 5 work tnUst be entrustllPd to a cOlllpetent foreign consultant who has experience 'and experti.e in cQifiPleting si.il;lt", assignments. GOG however ~nts our help in identifying such foreign consultants. S06 also wants to know why the draft letter contains a list oi IndiAn firas to who. the lettet"" would be addressed and K'hether~ it would be binding on foreign consultants to join hands with the Indian firln enlisted in the draft. As regards probable expenditure forca.pltrting the studies, GOG has yet to forecast accurately funds required for individual iteMS covered under this category. However,~. Trivedi felt that there should be no ~ention of the funds available for the study in 'the letter addressed to the consultants. 7. Although the Bank is pressing hard for .appoint.ent of exclusive field staff heilded by a separate Chief Engineer, Rural Roads., the'R&D DepartMent h.usnot been able to obtain the sanction for the sa.ae.Only Oil few ftOOths back the Road Project Circle, Gandhinagar with a divisions was relieved of its other duties and ordered to work exclusively on the'Sank Project. Even a regular full tiMe BE posted to this circle joined-only in June 1987. Unfortunately, the BE has been hospitalised for h..rt .il~t and is not likely to resume his duties for another one or two .anths~ Further, out of the existing a divisions, 2 divisions have been asked to handle drought relief duties. I~ the project is to proceed 00 schedule there should be sufficient field organisation to handle the work of survey, detail engineering of new works, in addition to execution of works under progress. Details o~ districtwise workload and requirement-of ~inimum number of field units to manage the same have been given in the Attach~nt 2. In actual practice a period of 4 to 6 aonths is necessary to establish, equip and man a newly created unit before one can expect it to give output according to the norms. To enable the department to spend Rs.220 million during FY 88-89, the contracts ~or the 291 jobs to be started in 1988-89 must be 1 et out 1 at est by the end of September 1988. For this' purpose, detailed survey plans imd estimates IftUst be completed by the end of Hay 1988. Considering all these factors the mission asked GOG _to sanction the additional staff without any further delay. 8. Although GOG has identi~ied the iteMS of .achinery to be procured on the project, it will need modification based on the experience of the data submitted by the prequalified contractors. The .issioo would request GOG to consider purchase of small vibratory compactors which can work in narrow widths and would be useful in building earthwork for widening the existing road formations and widening the road crust etc. 9. The CE, R&B Depart~ent wants to introduce a new system of measurements for payment of small earthwork involved in widening of existing roads. The CE wants to dispense with taking ground levels and formation levels at regular intervals. This will avolounnecessary labour involved in calculating earthwork quantities. The Bank has no objection to introduce modern methods if they achieve efficiency and econo~y. The Department should however ensure that there are neither any di~putes or claims from the contractors, nor SUbstantial loss to Government due to negligence of the supervisory officers. CCI Hr. R.Hulligan, AS4TE CSN:hs ,. $I , "1""  Attachmiint 1 INDIA GUJARAT RURAL ROADS PROJECT (CR. 1737-IN) PROCUREMENT SCHEDULE FOR CIVIL WORKS DURING FY (4/87-3/89) Package Numbers !./ Total Target Dates For Remarks NullllberLength Cost lnvit- Finalize Recpt.Open- start of jobs in k•• Est. ation Prequal- of ing of RB. H. of ifica- bids of Mark Pre-Bid tion Mark AP:z. SP'SJ MP:s' MP .... , 45 ~I 144.3 61.3 6/12/97 9/25/87 9/30 10.1 10.20 Sid. with con- BP::::.•• , BP.... ' f'<F:sJ 87 97 97 current pre- JP ..... MFa' "" 9 nos. qual i fi cat ion. SP:z, SP.; aP •• , 27 93.0 33.2 8/10/87 9/25187 1016 10.6 10/30 Bids with con- MF., RP.; BP •. BP:s 87 87 87 current prD- SPe • 8 Nos. qual i fi cati on AP:s' AP .. , sp., SP.. , 97 302.8 112.8 8118 111 1019 87 5/87 87 12/3 87 12/5 87 12/15 87 Bids with advance pre- SP&o' SPI:z, MP •• MP.. MP., BP., RP&. qu.ill ification RP .. , RP., Hf':z' tF'.,., ~.J JP., JP .. , JP., JP. o ' JP.:z, JP.:sI - 22 Nos. API' SP", SP., SP.,., 93 265.8 111.1 8118 111 10/9 12115 12115 12/25 Bids with SP., HP&, HP:z' I1P.J 87 15/87 87 87 87 87 advance pre- SP., SP.,RP:z, RF., quali f i caU on ., RP.,., RP., ~s, 1"P:s' ~ ~.l HCb, JP:s, JP., JP., JP., JP. I := 24 Nos. Total 63 Nos. 262 ~I 805.9 318.4 Note. 11 Th. . . nullb.,.s refer to the packages of diff.,.ent jobs idenUfyed during appraisal. ~I Although the umbrella Administrative approval covers 266 jobs in the first batch, 4 job. have been cOlllPleted frOlt the State' !I budget before the start of thl! Bank project. Hence thi. program contains only 262 jobs.  INDIA 6UJARAT RURAL ROARS PROJECT. CR.i1~7-in Detltt. of Fteld Units Raguir.d for Efflci.nt Ex.cution of the 'roara. '-ring 1987-8' Mia. of Diltrict Progr.e 10r icival !M.cution Pr09r.8 for lurvey To~1l IhH 1~ •• 4i~~!I~ r!sujrld MOil Iv.ilabl. • ••• rks Job Est. Budget i! a!hil En!!. Sub U', SE'I Chhf Idn. EE .1E MOl. cost RI.". FY 87-88 .Jott Est.cost tilts. Ifts Circle ea,r. h. Cire. 110•• Rs. II. Ahaedlnad 19 22 •• 4.8(12: 50 23 26.7 4 1 At prHent there is no ..p.nh CEo Sabarkilttha. 69 62.3 11.9 / '35'''' 95 76.7 10 2 4 Leatl U .. of 4 • lonthl is required for laulhntha 38 62.4 12.3/45.t17J 48 99.2 13 3 3 the uaUI to work at opU.u. llehll.na 47 55.7 11.7/3(,''''''' 77 77.7 11 2 3 1 3 1 1 ClIpacity. bjkot 30 33.5 6.8/ ,i!' 2 '1 12 15.0 4 1 2 1 Junltarll 41 45 •• 8.4/ '2.,1.,,, 26 17.7 4 1 2 1 BllavnlgAr 22 37.2 7.5 (/1'Sf 10 10.1 3 1 Total 266 318.4 70.0 IQS·D'J 291 312.8 49 11 3 1 18 4 1 'Vi '1 . 3tg 39- q 2..