L1Bidding creates shabby roads: Deepak Parekh

NEW DELHI: Pitching for public-private partnership to build urban roads, Housing Development Finance Corporation Chairman Deepak Parekh blamed the bidding process for the “shabby” and “very poor” quality of city roads in the country.
“Quality is very poor and every monsoon after rains, we have to redo the roads. This is because state governments have to award to L1, to the lowest tender,” he said at an event in New Delhi. “So the lowest contractor, lowest price bidder will always build a shabby road…I think some (PPP) experiment could be done with city roads.”

As Chairman of HDFC, which is India’s largest mortgage lender, Parekh also asked the government to have proper pricing for building infrastructure. “We need better contractors.

The government and states must pay proper pricing. They don’t have the resources, they go for the lowest bid. We have to build more permanent roads, which don’t get damaged after every monsoon every year,” he said.

Referring to the capital, which gets into a state of chaos every time it rains, Parekh said that while the odd-and-even rule for plying cars on roads didn’t work here, Mumbai and Bengaluru have the added problem of the quality of roads, besides traffic. As a possible solution, Parekh said municipal authorities should be allowed to raise funds by issuing bonds, which will help create quality urban infrastructure.