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Bandra-Versova Sea Link Faces Cost Escalation

Bandra-Versova sea link could take five years to be completed.

File photo of laborers working on constructing the toll plaza at the Bandra-Worli sea link in Mumbai. (Photographer: Adeel Halim/Bloomberg News)
File photo of laborers working on constructing the toll plaza at the Bandra-Worli sea link in Mumbai. (Photographer: Adeel Halim/Bloomberg News)

The nodal agency for the Bandra-Versova sea link project in Mumbai is re-evaluating bids after the lowest bid it received was 27 percent higher that its estimated cost.

“The evaluation of cost against the bid is in progress now,” said Radheshyam Mopalwar, vice-president and managing director at Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation.

The lowest bid received by the MSRDC or the construction of the 9.6-km sea link stood at 6,993.99 crore, submitted by a joint venture of Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. and Italian company Astaldi. The cost of construction of the sea link was estimated by the MSRDC at Rs 5,516 crore. That’s 27 percent lower than the lowest bid.

Reliance Infrastructure did not respond to BloombergQuint’s request for a comment.

Post the re-evaluation of bids, MSRDC hopes to award an order in the next month and a half, Mopalwar said. The actual construction work is likely to begin towards the end of this year, a senior official said requesting anonymity since he is not authorised to speak to media. The total duration for the construction of the project could be at least five years, he added.

The Bandra-Versova sea link is an important part of the coastal road project, as it proposes to connect south Mumbai to the western suburbs through a series of tunnels, sea links and reclaimed roads.

The cost of the coastal road project is around Rs 15,000 crore, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said in its Budget, setting aside Rs 1,500 crore as this year’s provision for the coastal road. While the first part of the project, between Princess Street flyover to the Bandra-Worli sea link, will be executed by the BMC, the second part, from the Bandra-Worli sea link is being executed by MSRDC.

The other bidders for the Bandra-Versova sea link were joint ventures of ITD Cementation-Hyundai Engineering and L&T Infrastructure-Samsung C&T.