The State cabinet has approved a new contract to a Hyderabad-based firm to complete the long-pending Ejipura flyover, giving it a new lease of life, on Thursday. With this, the flyover on the key Koramangala 100 feet road stalled for at least five years now, drawing a lot of ire from commuters and residents of the area, is all set to finally take off again.
Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy, also the local MLA, said now that the cabinet had approved the re-tender, work order will be issued shortly and work will be taken up on a war footing. “We have set an ambitious deadline of one year to complete the flyover,” he said.
However, the project has incurred a cost escalation of nearly ₹104 crore due to the long delays and change in contractor midway through the project. As approved by the cabinet on Thursday, the total project cost now would be ₹307.96 crore, up from ₹204 crore when work began in 2017.
The 2.5 k.m. long flyover between Ejipura Main Road - Outer Ring Road Junction to Kendriya Sadan on the Koramangala 100 feet road, began in earnest in May 2017. A Kolkata-based company Simplex had bagged the contract and the flyover with 81 pillars was supposed to be completed in 24 months. However, the company ran into many financial difficulties, and work got stalled in 2018.
Following Mr. Reddy’s protest demanding that the civic body cancel the contract with the company and re-tender pending works, the State government cancelled the contract with Simplex in 2022, and since then has been trying to re-tender for the remainder of the works. After three unsuccessful attempts, which got no bids, the fourth tender called for recently, got a single bid from Hyderabad-based B. Seenaiah & Company (Projects) Limited (BSCPL).
Simplex has completed nearly 40% of the works and 67 of the 81 pillars of the flyover. “The evaluation of the current state of the project has quantified the work completed to be worth ₹73 Crore, and another ₹142 crore earmarked for the project is pending with the civic body. The state cabinet has approved an additional ₹93 Crore for the project,” sources in the government said.
