L&T - Scumi clinches Mumbai Monorail

After Mukesh Ambani’s group, it was the turn of Anil Ambani’s consortium to be eased out of the race to bag the Rs 1,440-crore monorail project planned for the city. This has paved the way for the L&T-Scumi consortium—the only firm left in the fray—to clinch the deal. The development is a second setback for Anil’s consortium which was recently eased out of the race to bag the the Nhava-Sewri trans-harbour link project. According to the evaluation committee (monorail) of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the bid submitted by L&T along with Scumi, a Malaysian company, was more “sound and promising’’ than the one submitted by Anil’s Reliance Infrastructure and Hitachi of Japan.Metropolitan commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad said that one of the things that went against the Reliance-Hitachi bid was the time factor. While L&T-Scumi promised to complete the project in 24 months, the Reliance bid wanted over 50 months to put the monorail on track. “There were several other factors also and we have already informed Reliance in writing about the decision on Monday,’’ said Gaikwad, without elaborating. According to the tendering condition, the financial bid of the consortium which is found to be technically suitable is opened and selected. “Keeping this in mind, the financial bid of L&T-Scumi will be opened in the next few days and the confirmation to award the contract to the L&T-led consortium for constructing the monorail will be intimated to its officials,’’ sources said.