PANAJI
More than 15 years after it was first mooted in the years following Goa becoming a permanent venue for the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), the world-class 'International Convention Centre' has got a second lease of life.
The Public Private Partnership (PPP) cell of the Goa government has floated again a global tender seeking fresh bids to construct the 5000-seater hall and allied infrastructure for the world class International Convention Centre, on a nearly one-lakh square metres parcel of prime land at Dona Paula.
It took concrete shape in 2015, when the Economic Development Corporation was initially tasked with the job of executing the project but after bureaucratic scrutiny it was transferred to the PPP Cell of the State government.
The project tendered afresh now is to be implemented in the Design-Build-Finance-Operate-and-Transfer (DBFOT) mode is the second time the Goa government has sought bids to construct the facilities, which were first mooted by former chief minister Manohar Parrikar after Goa hosted IFFI for the first time in 2004.
The plan is to build a 5000-seater Convention Hall, a 300-room convention hotel, a four screen multiplex, a retail mall and some other infrastructure.
Land admeasuring 98,299 square metres formerly earmarked for the aborted Rajiv Gandhi Information Technology Habitat is where the project is slated to come up.
The tender invites bids from "reputed national and international developers" either as a single entity or as a consortium and finer details as to technical qualifications and other nitty-gritties of the tendering process will be uploaded on the eprocure.goa.gov.in website of the Goa government on May 16.
Earlier the government had scrapped the first tender process for the same project after the concessionaire who won the bid defaulted on financial commitments.
The deal with the DCS Solar-Vascon consortium was scrapped in mid-March this year when the consortium failed to furnish Rs 16.2 crore performance guarantee. The Rs 50-lakh bid security provided by the company was also encashed.
