Basic rates for NS items

Shared Documents Joined: May 02, 2005 No. of Replies: 1237

As per Board's instructions calling of item wise rates should be avoided. Even in Non-schedule items whenever it is possible to work out a rate based on the standard schedule of rates, it is advised to make a separate schedule for the same and give the basic rates worked out based on standard schedule of rates.

However for the non schedule items for which rates cannot be worked out based on the standard schedule of rates, the practice in almost all divisions and many units of construction department is to adopt an LAR or average of LAR though such instructions for such items have not been issued by the Board.

I have seen that the basic rates for NS items in the schedule are left to the estimators and some times rates adopted by them for some NS items are too low and rates adopted for some items are too high resulting into some items becoming profitable and some items becoming loss item to the tenderer. While evaluation of offer by the tender committee, the average LAR considered by the tender committee also varies widely with the basic rates adopted in the NS item to such extant that the basic rates of NS items in the schedule are seen abnormally high in some items and abnormally low in the other. The basic rates adopted in the schedules also keep changing from a tender to another, though they may be opened on the same day.

There is also a practice by some tender committees to evaluate the schedule of NS items as a whole instead of doing item wise comparison of rates on the pretext that no item wise comparison of rates is being made in the schedule containing the standard schedule of rates. But the difference between the two is that the rates in the schedule of rates are properly evaluated and the rate analysis vetted by finance and the market rates adopted pertain to same contemporary period/time. Even in schedule items where the rates are seen abnormally high compared to market rates, some restrictions are imposed by the TC in the quantities if the rates are seen high, but overall the rates are reasonable.

So item wise comparison of rates of schedule of NS items is a must even though the basic rates adopted can be of LAR/average of LARs as some times irrelevant rates are adopted as base rates of NS items.

Shared Documents Joined: May 02, 2005 No. of Replies: 1237

The other issue is the base rate of NS items in zonal tender. In zonal tender, the nonschedule items (with base rates for each item) are grouped in a separate schedule. No quantity or amount for each item is specified for each NS item in the tender schedule, but only the value of schedule as a whole is specified.

In this case the reasonability of the base rates adopted for the NS items have to be established before sale of tender documents by getting the rate analyis of the NS items vetted by finance as per current market rates as the base rates of the NS item in the zonal tender becomes sancrosant just like rate of a scheduled/ SOR item in a tender and the tender commitee cannot give a counter offer or change the base rate of NS item after the tender is opened.

It is also seen that the offer of schedule of NS item in zonal tender is always compared with the LAR (%age rate) of the same zone of the earlier period irrespective of the fact that there are new items added or some items deleted when compared to the zonal tender of the previous zonal period of the same zone.

Therefore care has to be execised while fixing base rate for NS item in zonal tender especially when quantity and value of each NS item is not specified.