Sooner or later every CPWD job throws up an item the schedule does not cover. A consultant specifies a proprietary product, a site condition forces a method nobody priced, or the drawing changes after the agreement is signed. The work has to be done and it has to be paid for, so somebody has to put a defensible number against it.
That number is a non-schedule (NS) item rate, and the document that supports it is the NS item rate analysis. This page covers what the analysis has to contain, the order in which CPWD expects you to try to derive the rate, a fully worked example, and — the part that actually costs people time — the reasons a submitted NS rate gets returned.
What counts as an NS item
An NS item is simply an item of work that is not in the Schedule of Rates applicable to your agreement. On a CPWD job that usually means it is not in the CPWD DSR edition your contract adopted, and no rate for it was quoted at tender.
It is worth separating three things that get lumped together in conversation, because they are governed differently and the paperwork differs:
- Deviated item — an item that *is* in the agreement, but whose quantity has gone up or down beyond the deviation limit set in Schedule F. The item exists; only the quantity has moved.
- Extra item — an item genuinely not in the agreement, required to complete the work. This is the case that needs a fresh rate analysis.
- Substituted item — historically, an item swapped in place of an agreement item. The concept was dropped in the CPWD Works Manual 2019, so on a current CPWD agreement you should not be framing anything as a substituted item. If you have inherited a format that still has a column for it, that format predates the 2019 manual.
Check your own agreement before you classify anything. Clause 12 of the CPWD GCC is the clause that governs deviations, extra items and how their rates are fixed, and the deviation limit that decides whether you are in Clause 12 territory at all is in Schedule F — which is agreement-specific, not a universal figure.
The order of preference for fixing the rate
This is the single most misunderstood part of the process. You are not free to jump straight to a market quotation. The rate has to be derived from the closest available basis, and only when that basis genuinely does not exist do you move down the list.
- Derive from the agreement. If the agreement already contains an item that is the same work with a different parameter, the rate follows from it — pro-rata where the relationship is linear (a 115 mm wall against a 230 mm wall in the same mortar), or by adjusting the differing ingredient where it is not.
- Derive from the Schedule of Rates. If the agreement has nothing comparable but the DSR does, the DSR item is the basis, adjusted for the difference and brought to the agreement's price level using the applicable cost index and any tender percentage.
- Build a fresh analysis on DSR basic rates. Where no similar item exists but the *ingredients* do, analyse the item from first principles — materials, labour, machinery and carriage — using the basic rates published in the DSR / DAR, plus contractor's profit and overheads. This is the most common route for a real extra item.
- Market rate analysis. Only when the ingredient itself is not in the schedule — a proprietary product, an imported fitting, a specialist service — do you price it from the market, supported by quotations and a recorded comparison between them.
The order matters more than the arithmetic. An analysis that is internally perfect but starts at step 4 when step 2 was available is the single most common reason an NS rate comes back, because the reviewing officer can point at the DSR item you skipped.
The NS item rate analysis format
Whichever route you took, the analysis is presented in the same shape as a DAR analysis — which is the point: a reviewing officer should be able to read it the same way they read the departmental analysis of any schedule item.
| Block | What goes in it | Basis to cite |
|---|---|---|
| Header | Item description in full, unit, and the output quantity the analysis is for (1 cum, 1 sqm, 10 m …) | The description must match the one that will appear in the bill, word for word |
| Materials | Every material, its coefficient per unit of output, unit, rate and amount | DSR basic rates where the material is scheduled; quotation reference where it is not |
| Labour | Each trade separately — mason, carpenter, fitter, coolie, bhisti — at day rates | DSR labour rates for the applicable edition |
| Machinery & plant | Hire or running cost of any plant, per day or per hour, times the fraction used | DSR machinery rates, or hire quotation |
| Carriage | Lead and lift for materials that need it, priced for your actual station | DSR carriage rates — these are lead-dependent and are left blank in the published analysis for exactly that reason |
| Sundries | Small consumables carried as a lump sum or a percentage | Follow the convention used by the nearest DSR item |
| Sub-total | Sum of everything above | — |
| CP&OH | Contractor's profit and overheads, conventionally 15% in DSR analyses | State the percentage explicitly |
| Analysed rate | Sub-total + CP&OH, then divided down if the analysis was run over a batch | Round only at this last step |
If the analysis was run over a batch — CPWD analyses many items per 10 sqm or per quintal rather than per unit — show the batch total *and* the per-unit rate. Reviewers check the division, and an analysis that only shows one of the two invites a query.
Worked example: a market-rate NS item
Take a stainless steel handrail specified by the architect after the agreement was signed. Nothing comparable exists in the schedule, and the pipe itself is not a DSR material — so this is a legitimate step-4 item. Analysis is per running metre.
Item: Providing and fixing stainless steel handrail, 50 mm dia, 1.2 mm thick, grade 304, including brackets, welding, grinding and mirror polishing, complete as per drawing and direction of the Engineer-in-Charge. Unit: metre.
| Description | Coefficient | Unit | Rate (₹) | Amount (₹) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Materials | ||||
| SS 304 pipe, 50 mm dia, 1.2 mm thick (incl. 5% wastage and cutting loss) | 1.05 | metre | 520.00 | 546.00 |
| SS brackets, base plates and fixing accessories | 0.45 | nos | 380.00 | 171.00 |
| Consumables — SS welding rod, grinding and buffing wheels, polish | L.S. | — | — | 45.00 |
| Labour | ||||
| Fabricator, 1st class | 0.30 | day | 897.00 | 269.10 |
| Coolie | 0.30 | day | 736.00 | 220.80 |
| Machinery | ||||
| Welding set with operator | 0.15 | day | 520.00 | 78.00 |
| Sub-total | 1,329.90 | |||
| Add contractor's profit & overheads @ 15% | 199.49 | |||
| Analysed rate per metre | 1,529.39 |
Labour day rates here are the DSR figures the site already publishes on its material coefficient pages — using the schedule's own labour rates rather than your own wage bill is what keeps a market-rate item partly anchored to the schedule, and it is the first thing a reviewer will check.
Only the pipe and the brackets in this analysis are market-priced. Everything else — labour, machinery, the CP&OH percentage — comes from the schedule. That is what a properly constructed market-rate item looks like: market rates for the parts that genuinely have no schedule basis, and schedule rates for everything that does.
Supporting the market-rate portion
Where a rate rests on a quotation rather than the schedule, the quotation is part of the analysis, not an attachment to be produced later if asked.
- Obtain and record more than one quotation for the same specification, and keep the comparison statement showing which was accepted and why. The lowest is not automatically the right one — a quotation for a different grade or thickness is not comparable at all.
- Quotations must be for the specification as written. A 1.0 mm pipe quoted against a 1.2 mm specification is the most common way a comparison quietly falls apart under scrutiny.
- Note the date. Market rates move, and a quotation from a materially different price period will be questioned — particularly on a job where the cost index has since been revised.
- Deduct GST from the quoted figure before it enters the analysis if the quotation is inclusive and GST is being handled separately in the bill. Carrying a tax-inclusive quotation into the analysis and then adding tax again in the memorandum is double-counting, and it is caught routinely.
Why NS rates get sent back
Being blunt about this saves more time than any formatting advice. In practice the returns cluster into a short list:
- A schedule basis existed and was skipped. Covered above; it is the biggest one.
- CP&OH applied twice. A contractor's quotation already includes their margin. Adding 15% CP&OH on top of a quoted supply-and-fix rate charges the department for the same overhead twice.
- Wastage buried and then added again. If the coefficient already carries a wastage allowance, a separate wastage line is duplication. Show it in one place and say which.
- The description drifts. The description in the analysis, in the deviation statement and in the bill must be identical. Where they differ, the narrowest one governs, and it is rarely the one you wanted.
- No sanction trail. The analysis being arithmetically right is not the same as the rate being approved. An NS rate needs the approval of the competent authority as defined in your agreement before it can be paid, and a bill carrying an unsanctioned NS rate stalls at audit rather than at the engineer.
- Carriage ignored. DSR leaves carriage rates blank because lead and lift are station-specific. Blank is not zero. An analysis that silently treats it as zero understates the rate, which sounds like the department's problem until the contractor claims the difference later.
Where the analysis ends up
The finished analysis is not a standalone document. It feeds the deviation statement, which feeds the sanction, which lets the item appear in the measurement book and then in the running account bill. Every one of those documents refers back to the analysis by item number and rate.
That chain is why the item description and the analysed rate need to be pinned down once and then left alone. Changing a rate after it has been measured and billed means re-opening the MB, the bill and the memorandum together.