On drawing board for 60 years, MTHL completed after numerous remodelling, bidding processes

The first proposal

It was with this in mind that in 1963, the US consultancy form Wilbur Smith and Associates, proposed a bay crossing concept with a bridge between Greater Mumbai and the mainland, and submitted a study report to the Ministry of Transport on 19 December 1963.

Subsequently, the Maharashtra government formed committees in 1972 and 1978 to study the possible alternatives for establishing the sea link across the Mumbai bay. The committees identified two alternative routes, a northern route linking Sewri with Nhava and a southern route linking Colaba (southern tip of Mumbai Island) with Uran.

In 1981, a steering group was constituted which reviewed the previous studies and recommended that a priority be given to the construction of a northern route connecting Sewri with Nhava.

Revived in 90s

The project, however, remained in the back-seat for close to a decade before being revived in the late 90s by the newly set up Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation which decided to test the feasibility of the project once again.

Subsequently, the first tenders were floated in 2006 with Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation being appointed as the nodal agency for the project that was to be built on a public-private partnership model.

Two years later, in February 2008, after a protracted battle in the Supreme Court, Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure which was initially disqualified by MSRDC from bidding, emerged as preferred bidder, promising to build and recover the cost of building the Rs 6,000-crore bridge in nine years eleven months. His brother Mukesh Ambani’s firm had quoted a toll collection period of 75 years.

Over to MMRDA

However, by June 2008, Anil Ambani bowed out of the project, so the state government then decided that the cash-rich Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority will build the project on a cash contract basis. In February 2009, cash contracts for the project were floated but no parties evinced interest in the project.

When the project was revived again in 2011, MMRDA appointed a new consultant for constructing the project on a PPP basis. In May 2012, MMRDA shortlisted five consortiums out of six that had expressed an interest in the project. But even by August 5, 2012, none of the five shortlisted firms submitted a bid on the project. As a result, MMRDA decided to scrap the initiative in August 2013.

EPC basis

With the project not taking off, MMRDA finally decided to undertake a switch to engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) basis model, seeing funds from Japan International Cooperation Agency which agreed to fund 80 per cent of the project cost, with the rest of the funds to be paid by the Centre and state government. The deal and tendering was finally completed by December 2017, and work finally commenced on the much delayed project.