TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Six agencies have expressed interest on-line for the tourism ministry’s beach life-saving plan, which will hopefully be implemented by mid-June this year.
Tenders were invited on April 30 this year for development, deployment, management and operations of water safety patrol with state-of-the-art facilities and systems on a turn-key basis at nominated water bodies for the department of tourism.
Among the six agencies is Drishti Special Response Services which is presently executing the beach safety management system along Goa’s 105-km coastline since 2008.
Others in the fray include Express Global Logistics Private Ltd-Mumbai, Group 7 Guards Private Ltd-Mumbai, Haast Precision Private Limited-Porvorim, Goa, Navnit Motors Private Ltd-Mumbai and Pune-based NGO-Rashtriya Life Saving Society India.
A pre-bid meeting is scheduled to take place later this month and the last date for submission of bids is May 27. Bids would be opened on May 28.
Drishti Special Response Services presently provides beach safety services on 32 beaches and the new tender proposes to include areas of Cabo de Rama and Cola taking the number of beaches to 38. Likewise, Dudhsagar water falls and Mayem lake have also been included in the list.
The tourism ministry may also ask the appointed agency to have special swimming zones for ladies as and where required. Indications are that more lifeguards would be required. Apart from the normal services of the lifeguard from sunrise to sunset, it appears that the tourism ministry is intending to strengthen night patrolling and re-entrust this task to whichever agency is appointed. Herald has also learnt that the lifeguard’s minimum gross salary as per the new tender has been pegged at Rs 10,500.
On the financial aspects, the ministry is proposing to advance the appointed agency 25 per cent of the total annual bid amount in the first year towards operationalizing its service. This has raised some eyebrows as to why the government has been presently cribbing about paying for replacement of equipment and other requirements needed on the beaches today to execute on-going lifeguard services.
