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The Maharashtra Government’s ambitious Rs 27,650 crore Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway project is facing objection from highway developers regarding the latest changes in bid conditions. Here’s why! According to reports, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) had invited bids for 16 packages of the expressway on January 1, 2017, with companies having been asked to submit bids by March 23. Notably, even though MSRDC received about 40 bids for the project � including those from China, Russia, Italy, Korea, Kuwait and Singapore � reports indicate that the bidding process was abruptly cancelled on the last day, a few hours before the deadline. On March 29, MSRDC invited fresh bids incorporating some new conditions. A senior spokesperson of NHBF speaking exlusively to CW explains the criteria that bidders are against. He says, “Firstly, companies have been disqualified if they are incurring losses. Secondly, companies have been disqualified if they have undertaken corporate debt restructuring (CDR) or strategic debt restructuring (SDR). And, companies need to have experience in building ‘access control highway�. He adds, “There are many companies which are solvent, but some of their SPVs have suffered the CDR issue. And so, only because one of their SPVs have faced the CDR issue, does not mean the whole company should be barred.� NHBF sees the new conditions as severe restrictive qualification requirements which will limit competition. In its current form, the request for qualification (RFQ) allows a very limited number of bidders to participate in the mega project, also eliminating a large number of bidders who had submitted their applications against the cancelled RFQ. Reportedly, according to NHBF, the requirement of experience of access controlled highway is superfluous and may be dispensed sttaing that the highway contractors are competent enough to construct such highways. It is known that the federation has written a letter to the MSRDC regarding this issue, and has also sent copies to the office of the chief minister, public works minister as well as the Prime Minister’s office. Here is a list of the applicants for the Nagpur-Mumbai expressway project: