Fresh lease of life for Corporation building

KOCHI: The building left halfway through construction near the Goshree bridge which was meant to relocate the Kochi Corporation’s main office may get a fresh lease of life as the state government has issued a directive to revise the project’s tender estimate at the 2010 rate. As per the new estimate, the total project cost will see an escalation of Rs 9.6 crore. The actual budget of the project that was proposed in 2006 was Rs 13.68 crore. The  corporation council has already approved the revised rate.“The state government had earlier instructed us to reschedule the tender expenses with an 80 per cent increase. Accordingly, the council approved a revised estimate of Rs 23.28 crore. However, we will have to hold talks with the contractor to know whether he is willing to undertake the work at the revised cost,” said Deputy Mayor B Bhadra.The work of the building was awarded to contractor P K Ramachandran in March 2006.  However, following disputes over the delay in the clearance of bills, the contractor stopped the work in December 2008. So far the work of the three floors as well as two-third of the basement floor has been completed.The Deputy Mayor said that though the existing contract was terminated on a risk and cost basis, the civic body had no plan to re-tender the work. “We are waiting for the contractor to make his stand clear. Then only we will finalise the next steps,” she added. Once the construction of the new building is completed, the Mayor’s chamber and major offices of the civic body are supposed to be relocated to the new facility.Earlier, contractor Ramachandran  had made it clear that he would not be able to carry out the work at the rates that he had quoted earlier.