ajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha has finally decided to cancel the bid of Dungah-ASCON-Sikdar for constructing 144 buildings of Uttara Apartment Project in the capital’s suburb.
The decision was made yesterday at a board meeting of Rajuk, chaired by its Chairman Nurul Huda, three weeks after the Tender Evaluation Committee recommended cancelling the proposal of the joint venture company, said Rajuk sources.
Dungah Construction Ltd, of South Korea, ASCON, of Dubai, and local Sikdar Real State Company had formed the joint venture and it was the lone bidder.
On December 24, 2012, the evaluation committee told Rajuk that the company failed to meet the criteria of the bidding.
However, Rajuk Chairman Nurul Huda tendered his resignation on Sunday following allegedly a row with State Minister for Housing and Public Works Abdul Mannan Khan over cancelling the company’s bid.
His resignation was not accepted and he joined work Monday following requests of officials of the housing and pubic works ministry.
The state minister in a meeting at the ministry on Sunday had allegedly mounted pressure on Nurul Huda to award the job to Dungah-ASCON-Sikdar.
Ruling party lawmaker and Real Estate and Housing Association of Bangladesh President Nasrul Hamid Bipu, who allegedly influenced Minister Mannan to favour Dungah-ASCON-Sikdar, was present at the meeting, sources claimed.
Nasrul, however, denied any involvement in the joint-venture company and even his presence in the meeting.
Minister Mannan yesterday told The Daily Star that he did not interfere in the matter before, nor would he do that in future. “Rajuk will make the final decision on it,” he said.
In the last two days, Rajuk Chairman Nurul Huda refused to talk to The Daily Star on the excuse that he was not well.
M Mahbul Ul Alam, head of evaluation committee and a member (development) of Rajuk, declined to make any comment yesterday and advised that The Daily Star talk to the Rajuk chairman.
In September, 2012, Dungah-ASCON-Sikdar became the lone bidder for the job of constructing 144 buildings of two types in Uttara Apartment Project.
The estimated cost of the job is around Tk 5,500 crore while the cost of the entire project is estimated to be about Tk 10,000 crore.
Under the project, a total of 223 16-storey buildings would be built with around 21,000 flats of three types, A, B and C. Dungah-ASCON-Sikdar sought to construct B- and C-type flat buildings.
The tender evaluation committee detected that Dungah-ASCON-Sikdar did not submit sufficient designs for the buildings and many among those submitted were not of the quality the committee could be satisfied with, sources said.
The committee also found that the annual turnover of Sikdar Real Estate was beneath the amount the tender criterion had mentioned as required.
Construction work for type-A buildings in the project was inaugurated on March 28, 2012, source said, adding that their construction was going on.
Source: The Daily Star
