MUMBAI: The IRB-Hyundai
consortium on Wednesday withdrew from the bidding race for the Mumbai Trans-Harbour
Link project citing its "unfortunate" experience with the government in past projects. The move came just five days ahead of the final bid competition for the 22-km sea link that will connect Sewri and Nhava.
Four consortia now remain in the fray: CINTRA- SOMA-SREI, Gammon-OHL
Concessions-GS Engineering, GMR-L&T Ltd-Samsung, and Tata Realty and
Infrastructure Ltd-Autostrade-Vinci Concessions. The bid submission is
on August 5.
The cost of the project has risen from Rs 6,000 crore in 2005 to Rs 9,630 crore in 2013.
IRB chairman
V D Mhaiskar said the state's role in big-ticket projects was highly
"unfriendly" for investors. "In public private partnership projects,
government backing plays a crucial role. Our experience is unfortunate.
We invested Rs 500 crore in the Kolhapur infrastructure project but even
after two years of its completion we are unable to recover the money
through toll due to various reasons directly attributed to government
apathy," Mhaiskar said.
Mhaiskar said his firm had written to the
Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority
(MMRDA), which had proposed to build the MTHL, stating that it would
not be able to participate in such state projects after its experience
and the overall discouraging scene for capital-intensive projects.
MMRDA spokesman Dilip Kawathkar said the authority had received the
withdrawal letter from the IRB. He said other shortlisted bidders would
be submitting their bids by August 5.
MMRDA sources said they
would still wait for the bid from IRB and several other companies who
wanted to participate in the competition for the multi-crore project.
The Centre announced its Rs 1,920 crore investment in the project
besides the shares of state government and the MMRDA. The Centre has
already renewed the environment clearances for the project.
