Civic officials have attributed the delay to 'technical issues'
Textile museum building at Kalachowkie
It has been more than nine years since the Rs 300-crore textile museum project was proposed and the work on the site is moving at a snail's space. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, which received the proposed tender document from JJ College of Architecture on December 28, has not yet floated the tender for phase II of the project. The officials have attributed the delay to technical issues.
The Heritage Department officials said the tender hasn't been released yet because certain items mentioned in the proposed document are not included in BMC's rate schedule, which is used as a reference while quoting a cost in tenders.
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"In the proposal, there are around 400 unique items, like certain kinds of doors and windows. Since the BMC has never used these items before, we have to do a rate analysis by seeking quotations from the market," said an official.
The tender will be floated only after Vinod Chitore, the Director of Engineering, Services and Projects, approves the rates that the BMC will finalise, the officials added.
They also said that it was highly unlikely that the second phase of the project will begin this year. Once the work begins, the completion of the second phase — which will see the reconstruction of the textile museum building at Kalachowkie, construction of an auditorium, an amphitheatre, a public library, among other elements — will take around 24-30 months.
Meanwhile, JJ College has submitted a list of proposed members for the content committee that will decide what artefact are to be displayed at the gallery.
Sabyasachi Mukherjee, the director general of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya and Shivaprasad Khened, Director of Nehru Science Centre and Shashank Tere, are among the names proposed. BMC chief Praveen Pardeshi will approve the names.
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