A little more than a year ago, the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) officials were patting their own backs for coming up with the idea of building an iconic tower in the heart of the city. However, almost 13 months later, they haven’t even been able to take the project to the next level — that of tendering.
This fact came to light when the tenders for the Inter-State Bus Terminus (ISBT) were floated last month by the authority. As per the original plan, the ISBT was a part of the iconic tower project, which is to be constructed at Wadala. “It is true that we have indeed gone a step back as far as the iconic tower is concerned,” said a senior MMRDA official associated with the project.
“The idea behind the iconic tower was to give the city a new identity, making it easier to showcase it on the world map as a world class city. However, one must appreciate that we have gone ahead with the tendering process for the ISBT — a project that costs Rs350 crore.”
The authority plans to make some other changes. Earlier, the tower was to be at least 530m (more than 100 floors). Now the authority has come up with an idea of lowering this height to around 300m (around 80 floors). Also, the authority plans to lease out land to the successful bidder winning the iconic tower contract. The bidder can then develop the tower and run it on the built-operate-transfer basis.
According to sources in the authority, it was the poor thinking on the part of the top bosses in MMRDA which has resulted in this embarrassment. “When the iconic tower was being conceived, the real estate industry was in recession. There was no need to announce such ambitious project at that time,” said a source in the authority.
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