The State government on Wednesday told the Madras High Court that it had begun to give road maintenance contracts for larger stretches ranging from 400 to 500 km and for a longer time of five years since the quality of work suffers when contracts are given for shorter stretches of five to 10 kilometres for shorter durations.
Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices R. Subbiah and Krishnan Ramasamy, Advocate General Vijay Narayan also said the Performance Based Maintenance Contract (PBMC) for a period of 60 months ensures that the contractor takes full responsibility for laying roads and also maintaining them in the same quality for five years.
He made the submissions during the hearing of a writ appeal preferred by the State government against an order passed by a single judge on June 5 permitting the government to open the technical bids received for the maintenance of roads in Thanjavur district but directing the government not to proceed thereafter until further orders from the court.
Assailing the single judge’s order, the A-G said, road maintenance projects worth over ₹2,000 crore had got stuck due to the interim order passed on a writ petition filed by a road maintenance company. He feared that the delay in finalising the tenders might lead to escalation in prices and cause a heavy loss to the public exchequer.
Thereafter, he urged the court to allow the appeal and set aside the interim order passed by the single judge. However, advocate K. Sridhar, appearing for the petitioner company, objected to the plea and stated that the appeal could not be heard since the government was yet to file a counter affidavit in the writ petition before the single judge.
After hearing both sides, the Bench permitted the counsel to make a representation to Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi of the High Court for taking up the cases for final disposal and directed the Registry to list the matters again on July 6.
