Punjab Saaf Pani Company (PSPC) has floated tenders among 42 pre-qualified international bidders to award 14 contracts worth 1.15 billion US dollars to provide safe and clean drinking water solutions to over 23 million peoples in 7,496 villages of ten districts with highly underground polluted water in the province.
Sources said that PSPC received more than 440 pre-qualification proposals from 64 international companies and out of them 24 companies were disqualified as they failed to meet the requisite technical and financial criteria.
Source added that on Friday, Punjab Saaf Pani Company (PSPC), the executing agency of the programme, held a meeting with over 100 representatives of pre-qualified bidders from Australia, Austria, China, France, Iran, South Korea, Malaysia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates to answer their queries about the award of contracts, underground water contamination reports, load shedding data, security guarantees and operation and maintenance costs of the contracts.
Replying to queries by representatives of pre-qualified multinational companies, CEO PSPC Waseem Ajmal said that law of land will be followed in letter and spirit to ensure timely and quality service delivery.
“We hope due diligence is observed by contractors in the execution of clean drinking water solutions and a strong check and balanced will be ensured at all levels”, he said.
Waseem added that it was the result of sustained efforts by PSPC that so many international companies have shown their interest in execution of safe drinking water project in the province
According to PSPC spokesman, safe drinking water solutions (water filtration plants) are being installed in 35 priority tehsils of ten districts of Kasur, Okara, Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Bahawalpur, Lodhran, Rahim Yar Khan, Sahiwal and Faisalabad in the first phase of Khadim-e-Punjab Saaf Pani Programme.
The residents of these rural areas will start getting safe and clean drinking water by December 2017, he said.
He said that safe and clean drinking water supply project is a mega project costing approximately US$ 3000 million, which will cover 137 tehsils (20,000 villages) to provide basic necessity of life to over 50 million rural population in province of Punjab. This programme will provide safe drinking water to every household within 0.5 km radius in a comprehensive, integrated and sustainable manner, he added.
He said that PSPC had received more than 440 pre-qualification proposals for 14 contracts from 64 international companies and some of them had collaborated with local Pakistani companies to execute the project in the form of joint venture.