High bids flag down CST restoration

MUMBAI: Restoration work on the grand oldGothic building housing the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, one of Mumbai''s twoWorldHeritage Sites, will be delayed again.
All the bids received by the railways for the first phases of the Rs 15-crore restoration project were higher than expected, so officials have decided to reissue the tender.
After Unesco awarded the building (formerly known as Victoria Terminus) World Heritage status in July 2004,Central Railway set about looking for a contractor to restore the structure.Work was originally due to start inOctober 2004.But six months after that date the tender process is being restarted from scratch, said Central Railway chief public relations officer Sunil Jain.
The new tender, like the previous one, will be limited to the seven firms named in a report by the consultant, Structwel. Conservation architect Chetan Raiker, of Structwel, said, "The rates quoted for the first phases of the project far exceeded what we expected. One way of cutting costs is to split the project, so that instead of the contractor having to subcontract out specialised work, we can directly deal with specialists in each of the four areas—the external stonework, the terrace waterproofing and plumbing, the structural repairs and an upgrade for the firefighting system."
So when can CST expect its much-vaunted facelift to start? "Rates will have to be submitted and then considered by a high-level committee. So work may not begin for another three months," said Jain. That would mean that the restoration work would start during the monsoon, with work on the outside of the building being put off till after the monsoon ends.