The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) has roped in IL&FS Engineering and Construction Company Pvt Ltd to complete the remaining civil works of the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC) metro station off Tumakuru Road.
The corporation decided to bring in the cash-strapped Mumbai company since cash-rich companies refused to execute such a “small quantity” of work, estimated to cost Rs 35 crore, it has been reliably learnt.
Construction of the BIEC metro station on the 3.03-km extension of Tumakuru Road along with two other stations was awarded to Simplex Infrastructures Ltd in February 2017. By now, the project should have been completed had the company followed the BMRCL’s deadline.
As work on the elevated metro project moved at snail’s pace, with the contractor unable to supply adequate men and material despite several warnings, the BMRCL appears to have taken the soft decision of splitting the works instead of terminating the contract entirely.
Sources said Simplex will continue the work on the Jindal and Manjunath Nagar metro stations as the company has been able to complete 50-60% of the civil works.
While Simplex has completed only piling work at the BIEC metro station, station structures have come up at two other stations. Delay in procurement of steel and cement, and inadequate deployment of manpower, however, prompted the BMRCL to split the works.
“Of the Rs 300-crore worth work on Tumakuru Road, Simplex has completed work valued at about Rs 200 crore. We decided to hand over construction of the BIEC metro station as Simplex had completed only about 10% of the work. Since IL&FS had its machinery in the city as it recently completed a metro project on Mysuru Road, we decided to rope them in,” a BMRCL official said.
It is learnt that BMRCL approached companies such as ITD Cementation India, L&T Ltd, NCC and Afcons, but none of them were willing to take up the work as only about Rs 60 crore value of work was pending.
In all, Simplex Infrastructures had won two projects of Namma Metro’s Phase II network.
Of this, the BMRCL in February this year terminated the contract of building the 7.5-km metro line on Bannerghatta Road for lack of progress despite several warnings. The work has now been awarded to GR Infra Pvt Ltd.
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