Ahmedabad Civic Body Stalls Updated Construction Rates for 20 Months, Forcing Contractors onto Outdated Tenders

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) continues to issue multi-crore infrastructure tenders using obsolete Schedule of Rates (SOR) estimates, despite the Gujarat state government approving the updated 2024–25 benchmarks over 20 months ago on 13 January 2025.

The persistent reliance on outdated figures has triggered serious technical and financial discrepancies across civic project bids. Road and Building Committee Chairman Jainik Vakil formally intervened by addressing a letter to the Municipal Commissioner, demanding the immediate adoption of the newly approved state government rates across all ongoing work estimations.

Flawed Estimates and Contractor Price Discrepancies

Civic departments routinely compile project cost estimates using rates from 2023–24 or even earlier financial years before floating public tenders. This systemic delay creates massive price gaps between official project estimates and the commercial quotes submitted by bidding contractors, making financial justification nearly impossible during evaluation.

The administrative delay introduces distinct structural problems into the bidding process:

• Rate Evaluation Hurdles: Committee members face severe difficulties verifying bid reasonableness when baseline estimates fail to reflect current market costs.
• Complex GST Overlaps: Older rates incorporated Goods and Services Tax (GST) within item costs, whereas the 2024–25 benchmarks separate tax levies entirely.

Double GST Payments Put Extra Burden on Public Funds

The ongoing reliance on deprecated framework rates points toward potential financial leakages. Information indicates that despite older rate structures including GST charges within baseline item costs, the municipal body separately reimbursed GST on several executed works.

Duplicate tax disbursements have placed an avoidable financial burden on the municipal treasury. Vakil instructed engineering officials to rigorously separate tax amounts before presenting proposal files to the committee, insisting that future tender filings strictly align with the revised rate framework.

Unreleased Online Schedules Block Transparency

While committee heads press for immediate technical compliance, the municipal corporation has failed to upload the revised 2024–25 Schedule of Rates to its official website.

Despite state approval dating back to early 2025, the lack of digital access leaves contractors and engineering agencies without standard benchmark reference documents, stalling tender transparency and municipal audit procedures.