Patna, Jan. 25: Three companies have bid for the maintenance work and the operation of traffic signals in the state capital.

The work to make the traffic signals installed at several points in Patna operational received a major blow when Webel, a Calcutta-based company, backed out after initially agreeing to take up the job.

The state police floated fresh tenders and at least three companies, two of them based in New Delhi, have placed bids to take up the operations and maintenance of traffic signals.

Sources in the department said the state police are “not interested” in speeding up the process to make the signal functional.

Patna Traffic superintendent of police (SP) Ajit Kumar Sinha told The Telegraph the bidding process has started.

“Three companies have shown interest. Two among them are based in New Delhi. We need to select one from the three companies and sign an agreement with them for the operations and the maintenance of the signals. At this moment, the work is on,” he said. The officer did not mention the names of the companies.

Sources in the traffic police department said this time the department is extra cautious about selecting the bidder after its bad experience with the Calcutta-based company not too long ago.

The department wants to ensure that the company is reputed and they have no problems in carrying on with the job. They want to be absolutely sure this time, which is why the process is taking more time than it should, police sources said.

In June last year, the traffic police had gone into an agreement with Webel and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). However, even after several months, the company representatives did not work on any of the signals.In November last year, the traffic police lodged an FIR against the company for a breach of trust.

Earlier, the traffic SP told The Telegraph that despite several reminders, the company did not get back with any formal explanation as to why it did not initiate any work.

Sources said the company sighted the extremely poor condition of the signals and the difficulties in obtaining the parts needed to fix them up, as the reasons behind their inaction.

By December, the department had scrapped the MoU and was in the process of inviting fresh tenders. “It will take some time. The company will be screened and selected carefully now. We hope that by the mid-year, some of the traffic signals will become operational,” an officer said.