Lowest price bidders will always build shabby roads: Parekh

New Delhi, Aug 31 (PTI) Noted banker Deepak Parekh todayattributed the "very poor" quality of city roads to thegovernment’s bidding process, saying that the lowest bidderwill always make a "shabby road". "Quality is very poor and every monsoon after rains, wehave to redo the roads. This is because state governments haveto award to L1, to the lowest tender because their rules andregulations don’t permit… So the lowest contractor, lowestprice bidder will always build a shabby road because heunderbid it and so every year you have to spend," he said. Citing the example of Mumbai, he said, the authoritieshave blacklisted five contractors who will not participateafter monsoon because their quality has been poor. His comments come after the visiting US Secretary of StateJohn Kerry this morning remarked about Delhi rains and theensuing traffic jams. "I don’t know if you came in boats…but I salute you,"said a smiling Kerry to a packed audience at IIT, Delhi, afterhis motorcade was once again stuck in Delhi traffic as heavyrains led to waterlogging. "You guys deserve an award for being able to get heretoday. I don’t know if you came in boats or amphibiousvehicles of some kind. But I salute you," said Kerry who wasforced to cancel his trip to three religious sites today inthe city after incessant rains in the national capital. Parekh also observed that the car population in India hasgrown much much faster than what government can manage. "In Delhi, you tried odd and even car, it didn’t work. InMumbai and Bangalore, we had the problem of not only trafficbut quality of road," he said. Parekh, who is the chairman of the country’s largestmortgage lender HDFC, said the government needs to pay properpricing for infrastructure building. "We need better contractors. The government and statesmust pay proper pricing. They don’t have the resources, theygo for the lowest bid. We have to build more permanent roadswhich, don’t get damaged after every monsoons every year," hesaid. Besides, he also made a case for Public PrivatePartnership (PPP) model for construction of urban roads. "I think some (PPP) experiment could be done with cityroads," he added. PTI DP CSSA