Udaipur Municipal Corporation (UMC) in the past three months had announced around 50 tenders of value below 10 lac for various developmental and maintenance works. However, these tenders have found no applicants willing to take up the project in the interior parts of the city.

According to Rajni Dangi, Mayor, UMC, these tenders majorly include construction of roads, both of tar and concrete, repairing and construction of sewerage channels in interior parts of city.

Mayor also added that these tenders cannot be allotted till UMC receives atleast 3 applicants for each tender. This is required as per the process decided by State Government.

The problem becomes a bit typical for UMC when dwellers of these localities repeatedly demand a spontaneous response from Corporation and blame it for the sloppy response time.

On being contacted, contractors gave their side of the story. One of the contractor said that as per the protocol, the contractors receive their payment (actual cost + 2-3% margin)only after a month or so after the work has been done i.e. advance payment is not done and initial payments have to be done out of contractors pockets. This, the contractors say is not profitable for them.

One other contractor said that work in interior parts of the city involves high labour cost and also these areas are at time inaccessible for transport vehicles required for dumping raw material required for work completion.

As the situation stands, UMC is blaming Contractor for negligence while Contractors blame UMC for its improper practices.

Whatever the side of the story be, a large set of common Udaipurite is suffering.