MSRDC may call new bids for Bandra-Worli sealink

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation is likely to invite fresh bids for Mumbai's ambitious Bandra-Worli sealink project.

The project has had a Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) cost escalation and the original contractor, Hindustan Construction Corporation, is unwilling to reduce costs.

A K Lakhina, vice-chairman and managing director, MSRDC, said: "I do not want to comment on the project as the position is very fluid at the moment. The state government is seized of the matter."

The Rs 410 crore (Rs 4.10 billion) Bandra-Worli sealink part of the ambitious Western Freeway seeks to connect the island city with its suburbs.

MSRDC, the implementing government agency, is believed to be inviting fresh bids in an attempt to ensure the completion of the project by 2006.

A senior MSRDC official confirming this told Business Standard: "Our attempts at arriving at an agreeable price so that the project work may be taken up in right earnest have failed so far."

The work on the Bandra-Worli sealink, for which the work was to begin from October 2003, has been moving at a snail's pace leading to cost escalations.

According to the senior MSRDC official, "While the original cost was estimated in the region of Rs 400 crore (Rs 4 billion), the current cost asked by HCC is more than Rs 650 crore (Rs 6.50 billion). It threatens to put paid to our efforts to keep this project as well as other components of the World Bank aided Mumbai Urban Transport Project within a stipulated cost regime."

The sea-link (between Bandra and Worli) commences from the interchange at the intersection of the Western Express highway and the Swami Vivekananda road at the Bandra Lands End and culminates at the Worli Dairy with an overall length of 5.6 km for the entire component.

A cloverleaf interchange at the Mahim intersection and a flyover at Love Grove intersection (Worli) are also part of this project that seeks to enhance faster and safer traffic movement.

Earlier the primary project management consultants Sverdrup Consultants was replaced by Dar Consultants in March and subsequently fundamental changes were incorporated in the project design.