Garbage collection project tender fails to draw bidders

The Amritsar Municipal Corporation’s plan to restart door-to-door garbage collection in 41 wards has suffered a major setback after no company submitted bids for the new contract. The technical bids, which were scheduled to be opened on Wednesday, saw zero participation from potential contractors. Officials now confirm that the entire tendering process will have to be reinitiated, causing a delay of at least one more month in implementing the project.

The tender, covering 41 municipal wards, was originally floated on May 27. During the pre-bid meeting, as many as 12 companies had shown interest and attended discussions with corporation officials, raising various queries. After making certain corrections to the tender terms, the submission deadline was extended by 15 days. Despite a 50-day wait, when technical bids were opened this week, no bidder participated.

According to officials, changes in the tender structure are being cited as the primary reason behind the lack of interest. Unlike earlier practices, the garbage collection work was divided into two separate packages. Moreover, the contract duration, previously set at 15 years, was reduced to just eight years, which reportedly discouraged large waste management firms from bidding. Companies are hesitant to invest resources for a comparatively short-term contract.

The reserve price for the tender was set at Rs 166.57 crore. The contract, once awarded, would cover door-to-door waste collection across south, central, west and north zones of the city. Specifically, the selected company would be responsible for wards 33 to 42 and 62 to 67 in the south zone, wards 48 to 61 and 68 to 71 in the central zone, wards 72 to 76, along with wards 78, 80, 82, 84 and 56, in the west zone, and ward 52 in the north zone.

The setback is significant, as the project had become urgent after six months ago, when Averda, a waste management firm previously responsible for the entire city, served a notice to exit the garbage collection contract. Following that development, the Municipal Corporation decided not to award the citywide collection work to a single firm again. Instead, the city was divided into different clusters, and separate tenders were floated for 41 wards and another for 43 wards.

Amritsar