After Central Vista, CPWD floats faulty tender to raze, rebuild MP quarters in North, South Avenue

In just weeks of advertising for bids development of the Central Vista in New Delhi, the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) has published a tender notice in the newspaper Hindustan Times calling for bids from eligible architectural consultants for the Redevelopment of North and South Avenue MPs Houses.

The notice states that it is a design competition, the tender notice is mentioned as ‘Tende Notice’ and comes without a tender number which is required if you have to search for the notice either on the CPWD website or on the e-tender website. The ad also states that the press notice is available on eprocure.gov.in, but it isn’t accessible. Additionally, it gives the architects only 19 days to come up with a design for a project of this magnitude. A tender notice is supposed to be a public document.

This has given rise to fears that the tender has already been fixed and the announcement was only an after-thought.

Several architects have complained and written to the email id given in the notice about inaccessibility of the tender. However, they have received no response. “We have not been able to find this tender on either the CPWD site or on the e-procurement website.

“Now this government has begun the practice of asking people to register on the website to download tenders, at times, we have to pay for the tender document, then there is the deposit of earnest money, which used to be for contractors and not for architect consultants as contractors provide jobs and are not a providing a service. Earnest money cannot be sought from service providers. Additionally, there is a bank guarantee sought, which is a percentage of the project cost; this also used to be only for the contractors, but now this government is asking for a bank guarantee from consultants too,” said Rishi Dev, who heads the eponymous Rishi Dev Architects and Associates.

Adding to Rishi’s observation is Arun Rewal of Arun Rewal Associates said that all these payments started only now. “Even for the tenders issued for architectural works at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library or the War Memorial, such deposits or earnest amounts were not demanded. We are always paid after the submission of the design. All of these are simply barriers of entry to ensure people don’t participate. There should be no barriers to enter a competition. This tender has been designed to eliminate people than to get more designs,” pointed out Rewal.

“There should be no earnest money deposits as architects provide an intellectual property to clients. There should be no performance guarantee or security deposit also. Architects are not contractors. Architects provide a service — they don’t sell goods. There should be no bidding. Also, at least 6 weeks should be provided after receiving reposes to questions posed at an interactive session with clients,” stressed Rewal, who pointed out that the situation worsened in the last five years.

“Now, we have to pay four times,” quipped Rewal, who said that projects should be awarded on the basis of merit by a jury of eminent architects.

The Council of Architects Act binds Architects from only charging fees, but the government which has made this law doesn’t follow it.

“We generally follow Council of Architecture norms on fees. The basic cost of providing architectural designs works out at 3 per cent for large products. Any fee lower than this compromises the quality of the architectural product and services rendered. Low fees could result in malpractice and corruption.

“Whatever the government is asking in this tender is against the Act,” pointed out Dev.

“Earlier a jury used to select the design and architect used to get paid as per the fees and there was no unreasonable financial constraints for submitting designs and the final product was mostly based on the calibre of the architect. This also ensured much less, but now any body who has political links and a financial partner can become the top architect of India without even having done any projects in the past,” underscored Dev.

Now no matter how good your design is, there is no chance for independent architectural firms to bid for these projects unless you tie up with a real-estate firm, which has deep pockets, said the architect, whose firm has built housing and development projects in Madhya Pradesh, Kabul, Oman, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, among others. “This makes us wonder if the government has already finalised who will get the project and this tender is simply a face-saving measure,” said Dev.

North Avenue and South Avenue, located on either side of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, has around 400 flats and CPWD had said earlier that they were considering proposals to build Lutyens-style bungalows in North and South Avenue after razing the existing flats. If they do so, then fewer number of residences will be available for MPs in the area than available at present.

“All old MP flats, which were built in North and South Avenues after Independence, will be demolished,” said Prabhakar Singh, CPWD’s Director General, in June 2019. He added that the waste from the demolition site of the old flats are likely to be used for the construction of the new ones after being processed at a facility.

Additionally, the low-rise buildings will have solar power panels and designated car parking spots, among a host of other facilities, said Singh in June.

Ever since the urban housing ministry awarded the bid for the redevelopment of the Central Vista to Ahmedabad-based architecture and design firm HCP’s master plan which suggested razing of several of the existing structures and rebuilding a few new ones, there has been criticism of how architectural consultants are chosen.