AHMEDABAD: Since 2009, the project of floating restaurants on Sabarmati riverfront had been dead in the water for the city’s civic body. After numerous attempts, Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Limited (SRFDCL) finally awarded the tender to a private firm on Monday, not for one but two restaurants. After the work order is issued, the firm will have to start operations within nine months. The contract is for 10 years.
Since 2009, a series of expressions of interest (EOI) and tenders, almost seven of them, had been issued but no firm came forward to operate the restaurant. Earlier, the plan was to operate one floating restaurant on the west bank of the riverfront. However, to stave off criticism that the eastern parts of the city were being ignored, SRFDCL modified the plan and added another restaurant. Sources in the AMC said that the civic body had intensified its efforts on this project for one and a half years as the ruling party wanted this operational before the assembly elections due in December this year.
