patna bihar has set the ball rolling for constructing a 55 km long bridge across river ganga between bakhtiarpur in patna and tajpur in samastipur districtthe bridge would be constructed under the publicprivatepartnership ppp mode and the bihar state road development corporation bsrdc has invited request for qualification rfq from prospective bidders for this prior to this the corporation got in principal approval for the said project from the ppp advisory committee of the centre the approval has made bihar eligible for central aid and loan if the viability gap funding vgf is up to 40 per cent of the project costvgf is calculated on the basis of total cost of any project to be undertaken in the ppp mode and the centre gives grant and loan to only those projects for which states are able to mobilise a minimum of 60 per cent of the total cost of the projectapart from the 55 km long bridge the project also entails construction of about 42 km long approach roads on the two sides of the bridge the estimated cost of the project is about rs 1500 crorethe bsrdc has made a preliminary project report ppr detailing the basic nature of work to be undertaken prior to ppr formulation a ground study of the proposed site of the bridge and of the approach roads was conducted by ilfs the agency was given this assignment by the road construction department about two years backthe bridge construction work would be executed on the designbuildfinanceoperatetransfer dbfot basis and the agency which would be selected for executing the project would be given the toll collection rights for a certain period bsrdc managing director pratyaya amrit told toi on mondaytoll collection rights would be given to the implementing agency to compensate it for the capital cost and the operating expenses of the project and returns thereonthe completion of rfq process would be followed by the process of request for proposal rfp for selecting the agency to undertake the said workwe intend to complete these formalities by midapril after which another three years would be required for actual construction work amrit said and added that the state government on its part would provide encumbrance free land for the projectthe bsrdc has adopted a business like approach and would be holding a preapplication conference of prospective bidders on january 23 to address their doubts related to the project if needed we would organize the conference in delhi itself for the convenience of the prospective bidders amrit said