Guwahati: The water supply contract between the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) and Gammon Engineers and Contractors Private Limited has been terminated by the GMDA nearly after 13 years as the company failed to complete it despite numerous extensions of deadlines.
As per reports, the CEO of GMDA, Kausar J Hilaly said that preliminary investigations had found that Gammon had falsy claimed to have completed 95 per cent of the project.
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Gammon had the contract for the “design and construction of complete new 107 MLD capacity portable water supply infrastructure project on turnkey basis in the south Guwahati western part.”
Some reports suggest that the cancellation of the project could affect the water supply of around 15,000 consumers in the city.
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The project spans from Kamakhya to Dharapur and was under contract with Gammon which was funded by the Asian Development Bank.
As per the reports published, Gammon had to execute and deliver the scope of work within 30 months from March 24, 2009, and during which several extensions were granted to the firm by the GMDA.
However, Gammon despite these extensions by the GMDA in the interest of the city had failed to execute the project completely.
Following this, a supplementary agreement was executed on September 11, 2021.
This novated certain terms and conditions of the contract, under which they were required to maintain the progress of the work per the scheduled annexe to the supplementary agreement.
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As per reports, the supplementary agreement also provided an amount of Rs 7.7 crore as per the firm’s demand.
After Gammon had again failed, GMDA sent a letter on April 6 to the firm and asked it to reply within 14 days.
However, the reply received by the GMDA from Gammon was found to be unsatisfactory and the GMDA has directed to “hand over physical possession of the site(s) to the engineers on 8th august, 2022 at 10 am.”
The contract may now be handed over to some other firm.