Mumbai: It may take another couple of months to streamline ward-wise civic development works that have come to a standstill due to glitches in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) system.
The newly-implemented GST system has forced a majority of civic development works to come to a standstill due to lack of funds. Delay in re-tendering implies that funds have not been released for these works, leaving ward machinery in tatters.
A senior civic official said, “Ward offices will have to carry out re-tendering for works for which tenders have been issued but not work orders. We will have to carry out re-tendering by issuing short notices to contractors. However, it will still take a couple of months to complete the process.”
The GST system was commissioned from July 1. However, the state government in a circular issued on August 19 said that government contract tenders issued between July 2 and August 22 be cancelled as they did not mention the newly-launched tax regime. The state government later made it clear that GST on government contracts, which was earlier 18 per cent, had been changed to 12 per cent. Accordingly, it asked the civic body to negotiate bids with contractors instead of scrapping them altogether.
However, tenders will have to be scrapped in the event work orders have not been issued to the contractor but the lowest bidder has been finalised. The state instructed inviting short notice tenders, which would be opened within a week or two. The BMC officials said that there could be delay in the tender process by cancelling all tenders and issuing short term notices. “We have tarted the re-tendering process and issuing short notices to contractors. But, it will take time for the process to be complete,” said the official.
