The city’s wait for a passenger water transport system on the eastern and western coast may soon come to an end with the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Limited (MSRDC) likely to finalise bids in its board meeting to be held on Thursday.
The city’s wait for a passenger water transport system on the eastern and western coast may soon come to an end with the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation Limited (MSRDC) likely to finalise bids in its board meeting to be held on Thursday.
A senior MSRDC official said that bids for the long delayed water transport projects on the eastern and western waterfronts were likely to be finalised in the meeting. He added that in case clearances came through, work was expected to start in October and take around 18 months to execute.
The MSRDC had invited expressions of interest (EOIs) from passenger and/or Ro-Ro vessel operators for participating in operation of passenger and Ro-Ro water transport from Ferry Wharf to Nerul and from Ferry Wharf to Mandwa on the eastern coast. It had also invited bids for the construction of an elevated road/ fly over from Ferry Wharf to PD Mello Road and Eastern Freeway (at Orange Gate).
A senior MSRDC official said that the fare for passengers in the air-conditioned vessels would be in the range of around Rs100 while car users availing of the row on, row off (Ro-Ro) facilities will have to pay about Rs300.
The MSRDC had also invited bids for the development of infrastructure and operation of the water transport system on the western coast. The MSRDC is seeking to undertake the Rs753.44 crore work on the construction of terminal facilities for the water transport system in three packages, namely, Nariman Point and Juhu (Rs262.36 crore), Bandra and Versova (Rs 239.39 crore) and Borivali and Marve (Rs 251.69 crore). It has also sought EOIs from passenger vessel operators for the operation of the passenger ferry services, which may have a fare of around Rs 5 per km.
The meeting may also discuss the fate of the existing concession agreement for the Worli- Haji Ali Sea Link (WHSL) project. The Rs 4,550 crore extension of the existing Bandra Worli Sea Link (BWSL) to Haji Ali as part of the Western Freeway project to ease traffic flow to South Mumbai from the suburbs has been stuck up because of the MSRDC’s differences with the Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) and Hyundai consortium, which was selected to execute the project, which envisaged construction of a 3.4 km main bridge with 2.6 km connectors.
MSRDC sources said once the existing agreement was cancelled by the board and the cabinet sub- committee on infrastructure, they planned to execute the project in phases by calling for tenders to grant upfront tolling rights for the BWSL and using the money for building a four lane sea bridge from Worli to Haji Ali on a cash contract basis, with two lanes being used for either side. Depending on response of vehicle users, the MSRDC will decide on constructing four additional lanes by floating bonds in the market to raise funds.
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