Ranchi, Dec. 14: The RMC is keen on breathing life into a dead electric crematorium at Muktidham in Harmu, but is making perfunctory efforts to rope in a maintenance agency for a facility that is indisputably beyond easy repair.
On December 9, for the second time this year, a tender was floated to select a private service provider for the power-driven pyre, which has been lying defunct for six years now. The first tender had been floated in June, but sources say, not a single agency applied. If insiders in the civic body are to be believed, the new tender may meet with the same fate this month-end.
"A pre-bid meeting for interested agencies was held on December 10. Not a single prospective bidder attended it. It is difficult to say why agencies are not showing interest. The last date for submitting applications is December 21," said Bijay Kumar Bhagat, superintendent engineer of RMC.
Ranchi's lone electric crematorium came up in 2007 at a cost of Rs 3 crore to curb air pollution caused by wood pyres, and was inaugurated in 2008. For the next two years, the electric chulha barely cremated a dozen dead, courtesy frequent mechanical faults.
Augmenting RMC's embarrassment, the twelfth body was left partially burnt because the generator running the chulha couldn't take load and it collapsed. Patchwork repairs were done between 2010 and 2012, but it always turned out to be a waste of funds.
In 2013, Citizen Foundation - a nonprofit in Ranchi - was requested to revive and maintain the defunct crematorium. The organisation, before taking charge, asked Alltech Enterprises of Allahabad, which specialises in electric crematoriums, to inspect the one in Harmu.
The agency, in its feedback, said the crematorium needed repairs worth nearly Rs 1 crore. Engineers of Alltech had even mentioned that the system was good enough to be scrap unless its substandard components were replaced with quality ones during repairs. The plan was, thus, put on the back burner.
So, why is the RMC floating tenders now when it doesn't have the moneyed means to fix the chulha and also when civic engineers too have certified that the electric pyre was substandard in the first place?
Deputy mayor Sanjiv Vijayvargiya conceded that the chulha was in a shambles, but stressed that they had altered clauses in the tender for that very reason.
"If you examine the new tender document, you'll notice that several clauses have changed. For starters, the interested agency will have to be willing to accept the electric pyre in its current condition and then do whatever is necessary - repair or replacement - to get it up and running for the next five years," he said.
What if no agency expresses interest?
"Tough question. Of late, we are noticing that private agencies are in general avoiding RMC jobs. No one knows why. So, we need to sit down and brainstorm over the issue," Vijayvargiya said matter-of-factly.
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