The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and the contractors of the monorail corridor will approach the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA) to settle their dispute over cost escalation and project delay. “We agreed to approach the MCIA to settle the dispute. Our contractors have raised several claims regarding cost escalations and project delays,” said Sanjay Khandare, additional metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA. The monorail corridor in Mumbai, the first in the country, has been under construction for nearly 10 years. The MMRDA has contracted Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Malaysia-based Scomi Engineering (LTSE) for the operation and maintenance of the monorail corridor on an engineering procurement contract model, where the government makes payments to the contractor in stages as per construction work. As the project has been delayed by several years, the two are in dispute over claims of cost escalation. While the contractor has blamed the government for the project delay and cost escalation, the MMRDA has started levying a penalty of Rs 7.5 lakh per day since January 1 for the delays in completing Phase II. Originally, the 19.5-km monorail corridor, from Chembur to Jacob Circle, was expected to be completed by 2011. The first phase of the project, an 8.8-km stretch from Chembur to Wadala, was opened to the public in February 2014. The second phase from Wadala to Jacob Circle was to be completed within the year afterwards but is yet to be commissioned. “We are trying to make changes in the agreement as it has no provision for such a settlement. Once it is complete, we will approach MCIA,” added Khandare. An arbitration committee, comprising three members with engineering and finance backgrounds, was hearing the matter for the last two years, but it will now be dissolved. To add to the woes, Phase I has been closed since November 2017 after two coaches of the monorail were gutted in a fire. MMRDA is still unsure of when services would resume.
