The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has set the ball rolling for the 22 km-long ambitious Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL). Soon, it will float global tenders (expression of interest) to invite consultants for the MTHL project by the end of January.
“We are keen to know the consultants who would be interested in coordinating with the MMRDA and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) who are our financial and technical partners for the project. Also, we expect international consultants to bid for the tenders. Accordingly, we are coordinating with the officials of JICA about working on the final preparations of the project and we are sure about floating tenders for the consultants by the end of this month,” said Prakash Mamdapure, chief engineer, MMRDA.
In the meantime, the MMRDA is also expecting a final clearance from the forest advisory committee of the Union ministry of environment and forest (MoEF) via a formal notification.
Earlier last week, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “We have all the necessary clearances for the project now, and once the notification on it is out, we will formally complete all the talks with JICA related to the financing of the project and also begin the process of tenders by March.” The JICA had earlier agreed to fund 80 per cent of the estimated project cost of Rs11,000 crore and the remaining 20 per cent was proposed to be made available by the Centre.
“We will require a team of at least around 100 executive engineers to be hired to work on the project. The MMRDA will recruit around 30 executive engineers for the project and the remaining will come from the team of JICA and private consultants,” added Mr Mamdapure.
