Vijayawada: In a delayed decision, the Andhra Pradesh government had decided to sue Japan’s architecture major, Maki Associates, for ‘malicious and misleading campaign’ against the government. The AP Capital Region Development Authority (APCRDA) had issued an open warning to the Maki Associates to restrain from spreading false news failing which it would go for legal course.
APCRDA Commissioner Dr Cherukuri Sreedhar said that the Maki was dropped from the capital designs contract as its designs were of low standards and have failed to impress the people, the stakeholders of the new capital, Amaravati. He said that the APCRDA had also negotiated with the Maki for better designs and also to bring down the price that it had quoted. As the Maki failed to give impressive and quality designs that represent and reflect the culture of the people here and the negotiations too have failed, the APCRDA had dropped the firm from the master designer’s race, the CRDA commissioner revealed.
The CRDA chief took strong exception to the Maki writing articles in a section of media, particularly on the online papers, spreading malicious campaign packed with full of lies. He said that the designs of Maki, particularly the Assembly complex design was found to be a copy of the existing Assembly complex of Chandigarh and also looked like the cooling tower of a thermal power station. “Maki submitted plagiarised designs which failed to attract people” leaving no option for the government to drop the firm from the master designer task, the CRDA chief revealed. He further said that the Maki, having lost the contract, was “making baseless allegations against the government and the APCRDA only to cover up its failure on the global competition.” The APCRDA commissioner termed the allegations of Maki as unwarranted and violation of the terms and conditions of the competition contract that it had signed with the APCRDA.
While asserting that the APCRDA had the unquestionable rights over the rejection or acceptance in full or partial proposals of Maki as per the terms and conditions, the APCRDA commissioner said the plagiarised designs of Maki were rejected in total, even after it failed to come to terms at the negotiations panel. It was then the APCRDA had once again gone for e-procurement and selected “Foster + Partners & Consortium” as master designer for the new capital. He further said that the Foster + Partners have the experience of executing the projects like the Parliament of Germany and the Supreme Court of Singapore. The financial proposal too was lower than the Maki, the CRDA commissioner said.
The CRDA Commissioner said that they have already served legal notice to the Maki for speaking against the government and violating the terms and conditions of the contract and further warned the firm against going to the public spreading false and fabricated information.
