The Cabinet has approved a Rs. 1.07 billion contract to Tudawe Brothers (Pvt) Ltd for the widening and upgrading of a 4.76-kilometre section of the Kandy-Jaffna road, the Daily Mirror reported at 2.15 p.m. on Tuesday.
The contract covers the stretch of the A009 from kilometre 58+240 to kilometre 63+000 under the National Highways Widening and Upgrading Programme.
Eight bids were received after tenders were called under the National Competitive Bidding System. The award went to Tudawe Brothers as the lowest responsive bidder, at Rs. 1.070 billion inclusive of contingency funds but excluding Value Added Tax — so the figure is not the full cost to the state.
The Cabinet approved the proposal submitted by the Minister of Transport, Highways and Urban Development, on the recommendations of the High Level Procurement Committee and the Procurement Appeal Board.
What the rate works out to
No filing states the per-kilometre cost, but it follows from the two figures given: Rs. 1.070 billion over 4.76 kilometres is about Rs. 225 million per kilometre, before VAT.
That is high against the most recent comparable award this desk has recorded. In May the Cabinet approved two contracts worth a combined Rs. 2.026 billion for 25.63 kilometres of the southern A2 — an average of about Rs. 79 million per kilometre. The two A2 stretches worked out at roughly Rs. 91 million and Rs. 66 million per kilometre. The A009 rate is close to three times the A2 average.
The comparison has a real limit and should not be read as a finding of overpricing. The A2 contracts were for rehabilitation and improvement of an existing carriageway; this one is for widening and upgrading, which involves adding width rather than resurfacing what is there, and can require land, drainage and structures that resurfacing does not. The programme names also differ slightly in the two filings — the A2 awards were made under the National Highways Widening and Improvement Programme, this one under the National Highways Widening and Upgrading Programme — and neither filing says whether these are the same programme under two renderings.
A corridor with a record in this archive
The A9 is the island’s main northern trunk route, and it appears in our coverage mostly through crashes: a luxury bus collision at Maradankadawala in July, 17 schoolchildren injured at Katugastota in June, and a bus crash at Galkulama in Anuradhapura last week. The Daily Mirror does not present this contract as a road-safety measure, and no filing links the widening to the crash record.
Not reported
The filing does not say where the kilometre 58–63 section is — the chainage is given without a place name, so the towns affected are not on the record. It does not give the contract duration or start date, name the eight bidders or the losing bids, state the VAT-inclusive total, or say what “widening” means in lane terms. It does not say why the matter went to the Procurement Appeal Board, which hears challenges to procurement decisions and whose involvement usually implies a bid was contested. No other verified newsroom had filed on this award at the time of writing.
