Chandigarh: Two smart city projects hit fresh hurdle

CHANDIGARH: The two key projects under the Smart City Mission in Chandigarh, have hit a fresh hurdle due to lack of bidders.
The projects include a bi-cycle sharing project and setting up of an animal carcass incineration plant at Dadumajra.
A senior UT official said that not even a single bidder came forward for the bi-cycle sharing project whereas only two bidders had submitted their bids for animal carcass incineration plant, out of which one was found ineligible.Now the technical committee under the Smart City Mission will take a call on the next course of action on these projects in a meeting on February 15.
For the bi-cycle sharing project, as many as 617 points in the city were identified which 110 are bus stops.
To speed up the pending projects, the UT administration had recently formed a five-member technical committee including chief engineers of Chandigarh administration, municipal corporation and Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB).
Apart from chief engineers, Smart City general manager and UT chief architect were also part of the committee. The committee’s job is to oversee the key projects and technical drafting of Smart City proposals.
The administration had recently initiated tender work on projects of 24X7 water supply in Manimajra, bicycle sharing system, upgradation of sewage treatment plants, integrated command and control centre, animal carcass incineration plant at Dadumajra and mining of dumping ground.
The Centre had even sought a report on the fund utilised by the UT administration for the Smart City in the past two years.
The centre had released Rs 300 crore for the mission but the UT administration managed to spend only Rs 20 crore.