Deadline for clearing tender puts Bogibeel project in doubt again

Dibrugarh, Apr 20 (UNI) The Railway ministry's failure to clear the tender for the main bridge of the mega rail-cum-road Bogibeel bridge over the Brahmaputra in Asom as the deadline of April 23 approaches has put into jeopardy the time-bound completion of this much-delayed project.

One of the country's biggest bridge projects, the Rs 17,67 crore Bogibeel bridge, the fourth bridge over the Brahmaputra, is coming up at Dibrugarh in Upper Asom.

Chief Engineer of Northeast Frontier (NF) Railway (Construction) V K Madhukar, who visited the construction site on April 18 along with local MPs Sarbananda Sonowal and Arun Sarma, said, ''Till March 2007, Rs 697.11 crore has been spent for the construction of the mega bridge.'' Two other MPs from Arunachal Pradesh, Khiren Rijiju and Tapir Gao, also accompanied the team.

Mr Madhukar is in charge of the construction work of the project, which had been declared a national project in the last railway budget by Railways Minister Lalu Prasad.

Official sources said that the file of the main bridge tender was still pending with the Railway Ministry. If the ministry fails to clear it by April 23, the project will be delayed by two years.

The speculated time for completion of the project is 2012.

The global tender for contract of the Rs 345-crore main bridge expires on April 23. While the public sector Hindustan Construction Corporation (HCC) made it to the final stages of the bid, if the Railway Ministry fails to clears the file by Monday, the ministry would have to have to float another global tender.

The technicality of such a process is such that it takes 24 months from drafting the advertisement to allocating the work order.

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