The access road construction contract for the Melamchi Water Supply Project (MWSP) is in line with the international standards and the country's fiscal rules. So goes the claim of the contractor of Nepal's biggest project. The contractor, CCECC, Sharma and Lama Company held a press meet to claim that the contract was awarded to them after they won the international bidding and that no one had influenced the bidding process. This comes as the RCCC conducts investigations against Former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, Former Minister Prakash Man Singh and four other MWSP staff. The commission has charged them of being involved in corruption in the access road construction of the drinking water project. The contractor company's representative Ramesh Sharma said his company's bidding was accepted only after an agreement with the Asian Development Bank saying it was in line with the multilateral agency's guidelines. "That is why it is not possible to influence the contract awarding process," said Sharma. The bidding contractors are evaluated by Norplan, the project's consultant appointed by the donors of the scheme, he said. He, however, accepted that there was an escalation in price and the reasons were changes in design, estimates and overall inflation in the price of goods. MWSP had to terminate the contract with the previous contractor Hanil Koneko after the Korean builder allegedly demanded an unreasonable amount of money as cost overruns.