The Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) has asked the National Informatics Centre to revoke the cancellation of its tender for 1,000 air-conditioned electric buses, saying the procurement was cancelled inadvertently and seeking an extension of the bid submission deadline to November 4.
The request was made in a letter dated October 14 from the MTC chairman to the NIC. The corporation asked that the tender be restored to its previous status after the original bid submission deadline expired on October 14. MTC also submitted an undertaking accepting responsibility for the legal implications of reversing the cancellation.
According to the undertaking, MTC stated that revoking the cancellation would not violate applicable law and that the corporation would be responsible for any legal or governmental proceedings arising from the decision. The request follows MTC’s cancellation of the tender a day earlier, citing administrative reasons.
The tender covers the procurement, supply, operation and maintenance of 1,000 low-floor, 12-metre air-conditioned electric buses. MTC had extended the bid-opening date multiple times before cancelling the tender. The corporation’s latest request seeks to restore the procurement process rather than begin a fresh tender immediately.
The tender was floated in March under the gross cost contract model. Under this arrangement, the procurement includes the operation and maintenance of the buses, rather than being limited to the purchase of vehicles. The Tamil Nadu government had allocated Rs 500 crore in its state budget for procuring the buses and upgrading depot infrastructure needed to accommodate the electric fleet.
The proposed procurement is part of a wider effort to expand Chennai’s electric bus network. However, a separate MTC tender for 220 air-conditioned, low-floor electric feeder buses has closed without receiving any bids. That fleet was intended to provide first- and last-mile connectivity to Chennai Metro stations.
The feeder-bus proposal included 70 seven-metre buses and 150 five-metre buses. The services were planned as conductor-less operations with onboard fare collection systems, on routes identified by the Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority and Chennai Metro Rail Ltd within a five-kilometre primary influence area of Metro stations.
The seven-metre buses were specified to have at least 13 seats and one wheelchair space, while the five-metre buses were to have 11 seats and one wheelchair space. The absence of bids leaves that separate procurement without a selected operator or supplier based on the information available in the report.
The latest setbacks follow the cancellation of an earlier tender for 500 electric buses funded by German development bank KfW. The previous DMK government had cited technical reasons for cancelling that tender, while officials indicated that the procurement model would be changed to a gross cost contract.
MTC’s immediate next step is its request to the NIC to reverse the cancellation and extend the bid submission deadline to November 4. The corporation’s undertaking places responsibility for the legal and governmental consequences of that reversal with MTC.
