chennai battered by the monsoon and regime changerelated issues about 6000 potholeriddled roads in the city are crying for a fresh sheet of bitumen but the greater chennai corporation has not issued even a single work order to contractors despite completion of tender process reason extraneous factors among other ills on one side is shrill civic demand for relaying of city roads both bus routes and interior parts on the other side is a multicrore multiround tender process that is stuck at several levels obstructing the civic demandsupply scenario are technical and price negotiations and bribe demands say contractors when contacted chief engineer s rajendiran told toi that the delay was due to holidays and scrutiny committee proceedings there were several festivals in january delaying the bidding process also we have received requests from councillors to lay 6000 roads involving rs 800 crore we need to get council approval for all of them and will relay them soon the mayor has given her approval for the work that has been finalised soon work orders will be given he said nevertheless tenders involving 45 crore to relay 362 city roads were supposed to be closed by december 2022 but it was withdrawn and called again in the second week of january 2023 after another extension it was finalised on february 9 but work orders have not been issued leaving both the successful bidder and the residentsinneed stranded they are expected after the council meeting scheduled on or after february 28 said a contractor for another 300 roads tenders worth 29 crore have been finalised but it is pending negotiation while officials told toi that the negotiations were about bringing down the excess percentage from 1415 to 24 contractors say negotiations are taking place at the zonal office level rama rao a civic contractor who has participated in some of these tenders said contractors were being called and asked to take back their cheques for emd s pandian another contractor said they have already decided who the work has to be allotted to they promise to give us other workhowever denying the allegation an official said we will start laying the roads soon the delay is just administrative the negotiations are to further reduce the project cost and not about commissions as alleged there are at least 670 damaged roads for which tenders worth 65 crore are ready to be floated after obtaining the corporation councils nod in the coming session the last batch of another 4500 city roads is awaiting tamil nadu urban finance and infrastructure development corporation approval and administrative sanction for tenders worth 520 crore the civic body has been allocated a total of over 1171 crore under various schemes such as tamil nadu urban road infrastructure fund turif singara chennai nagarpura salai maembattu thittam and others anticorruption activist jayaram venkatesan of arappor iyakkam said tenders were being called cancelled recalled and cancelled again in the past three months not a single work order has been issued the