Assam: National Highway contract of Simplex terminated

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: Kolkata-based construction firm Simplex Infrastructures Limited has been terminated in a four-lane National Highway project in Lower Assam due to an unprecedented delay in work completion. NHIDCL had awarded it a four-lane work contract in Lower Assam, but, despite repeated reminders, the firm failed to speed up the work and was finally terminated, as there was no other option left.

The National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) had awarded the project—Widening and Improvement to 4 (Four) Lane with Paved Shoulder configuration of the existing single lane road from Srirampur (near Bhairiguri Village) to Kachukhana Harichara Paglagaunj (Package-I) of Srirampur-Dhubri Section of NH-127B of Length 27.65 Km on EPC Mode in the State of Assam under JICA-ODA loan assistance”—on September 12, 2022. The total award cost of the project was Rs 297.28 crore. After mutual discussion, the construction firm was issued appointment date for the project on February 15, 2023. As per the contract agreement, the entire work was supposed to be completed within 730 days from the date of appointment, i.e., on February 14, 2025.

The firm, however, started off the work at such a lethargic pace that NHIDCL had to issue several notices to the firm to speed up the work in the initial phase so that the work could be completed within the stipulated time. Despite the reminders, the work was not speeded up accordingly, and milestones were missed. The NHIDCL, after examining all aspects, finally decided to terminate Simplex from the project on June 24, 2024.

According to the termination notice of NHIDCL, “In complete disregard to the aforesaid stipulation, the contractor had failed to undertake the construction work at the requisite pace, inter alia, due to inadequate deployment of machinery, plant, material, and manpower for reasons solely attributable to the EPC contractor. However, to say the least, the progress of work has been dismal since the start of the project, and the contractor has been able to achieve 0.00% financial progress up to January 23, 2024, against the desired progress of 36.49% as per the Baseline Work Program. As per the contract agreement, Milestone-1 (10% financial progress) was due on October 29, 2023, but the EPC contractor has failed to achieve Milestone-l.”

Moreover, the notice said the Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) contractor has been continuously failing to meet the monthly progress commitments due to their poor planning, failure in procuring or arranging construction materials, and failure in proper deployment of manpower, plant and machinery, thus losing precious working time.

 Also Read: National Highway projects worth over Rs 1 lakh crore going on in Northeast (sentinelassam.com)

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