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Kannur International Airport Ltd (KIAL) is expected to call fresh bids for an integrated airport consultant.
This has become inevitable after it has had to cancel the agreement with a consortium led by STUP Consultants for violation of request for proposals (RFP) conditions.
Blacklisting rider
An official spokesman said here that the KIAL tender notice had specified clearly that no contractor with a concurrent blacklisting was eligible to apply.
The STUP consortium and rival bidders had given an undertaking to KIAL that they did not bear any ‘blacklisted’ tag while applying to its tender.
As per the terms of the tender, the technical bids were to be evaluated first. The financial bids would be opened only if the respective technical bids had scored minimum 75 per cent marks.
Eighty per cent weightage would be given to technical excellence and the financial bid, 20 per cent.
When these scores were put together, STUP Consultants had come up trumps and had gone on to clinch the contract on August 9.
But a show-cause was served when it came to KIAL’s notice that STUP Consultants had been declared ineligible in two earlier contracts in Uttarkhand and Gujarat.
Reply to notice
In its reply to the show-cause, STUP Consultants was able to convince KIAL that it could not be accused of violations of the type that the latter was referring to.
It was subsequent to this that the contract for the integrated airport consultancy was signed with STUP Consultants and Darashaw, the spokesman said.
But later KIAL accessed an affidavit submitted by STUP Consultants with respect to a related case in the High Court of Kerala indicating an instance of its blacklisting in Punjab.
This blacklisting did not speak of a specific period of pendency, leading to perception that it could well have been valid at the time of applying for the KIAL contract.
KIAL served another notice to STUP to come clear, the reply to which failed to carry conviction. This was followed by the cancellation of the contract, the spokesman said.
New bids
According to sources, KIAL will now seek to include new riders for selecting the new consultant.
The bids will be evaluated by a committee appointed by the board, in accordance with the norms and eligibility criteria to be prescribed in the RFP documents.
The KIAL board is likely be convened next week in Kochi to take decision on calling for fresh bids.
Efforts are on to call the bids at the earliest and appoint the project consultant by October first week.
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