The Department of Roads (DoR) has developed a software to monitor the contractors’ works across the country.

A single contractor occupying multiple contracts beyond their capacity has been blamed as one of the key factors behind slow implementation of numerous development projects. The software was developed to control the instance of one contractor taking more than one project at a time, well beyond its capacity.

  The government did not have any reliable mechanism to examine contractors’ capacity till date, other than the documents produced by the contractors themselves. The government agencies have been awarding contracts to the lowest bidder even if the bidder has no capacity to develop the concerned project.

“The software is now in the test phase,” said Mukti Gautam, spokesperson of the DoR. “We are currently collecting the details of the contracts and the contractors from the offices under the department across the country.”

The DoR has set the target of completing the task within a month.  

“Once the software comes into effect, we can remove the bidders that have no capacity to handle additional contracts from the technical qualification stage before entering into financial qualification stage.”

During the technical qualification, contractors’ experiences, equipment and human resources and financial capability are examined. The bid amount in examined for financial qualification.

Tracking the contractors involved in roads and bridges alone is not going to be enough since one contractor might be involved in other projects, such as office buildings and irrigation facility.

According to Gautam, the software would also accommodate the contracts from other government agencies.

After the test phase, which may be completed in 20-25 days, the DoR plans to request the Public Procurement Monitoring Office to examine the software for possible use by other government agencies too.