Builder gets three more months to collect funds

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation’s (MSRDC) board, on Monday, decided to extend the deadline for financial closure of the Worli Haji Ali Sea link by three months till March.

The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation’s (MSRDC) board, on Monday, decided to extend the deadline for financial closure of the Worli Haji Ali Sea link by three months till March.

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The MSRDC had awarded the contract to the consortium of Reliance Infrastructure and Hyundai Engineering to build the Worli Haji Ali sea link.

The consortium, as per terms of the agreement, was given time till the end of December to tie up funds for the project.

It was also expected that all requisite environmental clearance would also be got by 2010-end. However, as both have not happened, the MSRDC decided to extend the financial closure time till March-end.

“Our board decided, on Monday, to give a three-month extension to attain financial closure to the concessionaire,” a senior MSRDC official said.

On February 4, 2009, after a tedious two-year process, the Reliance Infrastructure-Hyundai consortium emerged as the preferred bidder for constructing the Worli Haji Ali sea link, which is a component of the state’s ambitious Western Freeway sea link project to connect Bandra to Nariman Point.

Reliance-Hyundai had sought a viability gap funding (VGF) of Rs 1,392 crore while HCC-John Laing-Samsung quoted a figure of Rs 2,466 crore to build the 3.3-km bridge.

VGF is the amount given by the government to make infrastructure projects financially viable for developers.

The base cost of the bridge is Rs 1120 crore. However, the bidder will also have to buy the 5.6-km Bandra Worli sea link from MSRDC at a cost of Rs 1,640 crore.