Tendering Update
The tender process has been long, tedious, and frustrating, but has also provided incredible insights into working with the government in implementing a project as unique and with such a scale as Sammaan, and the end is in sight. Much has been written about the tender in both this monthly newsletter and the project blog, but it is certainly a milestone worthy of such attention.
The feelings of elation shared by many partners following the tender release of the Public Toilets in Bhubaneswar were short-lived as the focus shifted to the Community Toilets, particularly the sites in Cuttack. Unlike the process that brought about the PT tender release in Bhubaneswar and is being followed for the Community Toilets there, in which the facilities are split into separate batches with total costs below the 3 crore threshold that permits the city municipalities to provide technical sanction and, therefore, release the tender, the total tender package of 32 facilities for nearly 8 crore needs to be released in Cuttack.
This necessitates the technical sanction coming from the Public Health Department engineers, and in many ways involves starting from the beginning with the review process. Additional documentation has been required for review as a new set of eyes is now reviewing the project and, in turn, a great deal of time needed to be spent by the team to produce the required documents and to bring the PH team up to speed.
This additional level of scrutiny and the time associated with it, which is already exacerbated by the various innovations previously unseen in sanitation initiatives in both cities (e.g., menstrual waste incinerators, advanced waste management systems), has meant that progress with the facilities has been slower than those in Bhubaneswar. That said, and as the CMC reassured us, this is protocol that needs adherence to. Thankfully, the communication between the government and non-government partners has been free-flowing and numerous meetings between the teams in the past few months have expedited matters and assured all parties were moving forward on the same page.
With the project’s precedent being set with the release of the Public Toilet tenders, the review process for the Community Toilets has been expedited at the BMC. The team is finalizing the last of the paperwork requested by the BMC Engineers and the tender release for the 60 Community Toilets is expected in the first weeks of January. There were two packages of Public Toilets that only received a single bidder. The BMC has forwarded the issue on to the central government for review and to decide whether to award the contract or reissue the tender for those packages. The team is expecting resolution on this matter in the coming weeks.
Similar to the meetings at the CMC, the non-government teams have spent a good deal of time working with the government counterparts to address issues clearly and quickly to help keep the project within its timelines. This level of engagement has fostered a greater sense of partnership between the team members and has helped keep Project Sammaan on the forefront of everyone’s minds.
The entire tender process has provided incredible learnings for the Sammaan team and will be a primary feature of the project’s toolkit. Navigating the complex process has required the efforts of several project team members and has provided invaluable opportunities to see the project through different perspectives. As this experience is new to most members of the Sammaan team, it is something in which individual partners, as well as the project as a whole, would have benefited greatly from having access to the learnings of other, similar initiatives.
Knowing that the toolkit component of Sammaan will provide just that knowledge to future projects is gratifying, and helps to assuage the consternation felt while working through the tender process.