The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation is running late by almost a month now. They are lagging behind in the implementation of the High Security Registration Plates (HSRP) project in the state. The corporation has called for new tenders after the previous, second tender process was cancelled due to the exposure of irregularities. The new tender process will be complete by the end of May. Provided, of course, that this third tender process is completed successfully.
Incidentally, the state has already been served contempt notices by the Supreme Court for the delay. Despite this, the state will again miss the April- end deadline to start the fixing of number plates. Even the May-end projections given by the corporation may not be achievable. The project had missed earlier deadlines a number of times and despite the contempt notice, the project remains entangled in red-tapism.
The first tender process, which was completed early in December 2011, had been rejected by the Supreme Court for security reasons because of three different tenders involved. Later the second tender process was called off on the instructions of the transport minister Botsa Satyanarayana after irregularities surfaced involving a fraudulent company being allowed to participate in the tender process.
Meanwhile, the ‘Request for Proposal’ of the fresh tender process of the multi- crore project was announced by the APSRTC on April 25, 2012 and a pre-bid meeting will be held on May 2, 2012.
However, if matters proceed to the final stages on schedule, the signing of the agreement will take place in the last week of May, as per the ‘Request for Proposal’ document. The corporation, meanwhile, is projecting a target of a week to ten days for the fixing of the number plates. However, this seems impractical as the finalised bidder will be required to physically set up a manufacturing unit in the state first and begin producing as well as fixing the number plates, all within seven to ten days.