After nine years of construction, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link will finally be thrown open by Congress president Sonia Gandhi here tomorrow. The first of its kind in the country, the 5.6-km link, conceived in the 1990s, promises to cut the 40-minute crawl from suburban Mumbai into downtown to a seven-minute ride.

Its two central towers that soar above the sea may have changed the city’s iconic skyline — but it’s a change fraught with a five-year delay, massive cost overruns and protracted disputes between the government and the contractors.

In fact, the sea link is itself only one segment of the Western Freeway Project, envisaging a garland of similar high-speed links along the city’s western coast, connecting the suburbs all the way to the tip of South Mumbai.

But the next arms, the 3.5-km Worli-Haji Ali Sea Link and some form of connectivity — its precise form as yet undecided — between Haji Ali and Nariman Point are crucial for the project’s impact to be felt across the choked city.

The Worli-Haji Ali link tendering got delayed owing to recession-hit contractors asking for repeated extensions to submit bids. The bids are now in and a decision on the contract is awaited. The Haji Ali-Nariman Point link is not even on the drawing board with the government mulling various options, including an ambitious proposal to build it as part sea link and part tunnel.

Work on the Bandra-Worli Sea Link could only begin seven months after the contract was awarded in 2000 to the Hindustan Construction Company thanks to much feet-dragging by the government in handing over the construction site.

That was followed by design changes and, consequently, a series of disputes over cost escalations. First, the alignment on the Worli side was changed — it was moved 150 m into the sea to accommodate the demands of local fishermen. This was slipshod planning, for the new alignment involved cutting through much denser, stronger basalt rock before the pylon foundations could be laid. Then, when HCC submitted the cost implications, the claims were immediately rejected, leading to the start of negotiations that haven’t entirely concluded.

As further design changes were incorporated, by October 2003, HCC’s revised cost estimate was over twice the Rs 400-crore value of the original contract, leading to loud allegations of overcharging. Further negotiations, a new project management consultant, and more unpaid bills followed.

“This is not the time to talk about it,” said Ajit Gulabchand, managing director of HCC, when asked about his pending outstanding bills to the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). Officials of the latter stayed tight-lipped too, their spat with HCC over huge cost escalations swept aside for now, though what was a Rs 400-crore contract now comes with a price tag of Rs 852 crore.

The link’s inauguration comes when vehicular traffic in the Mumbai region is rapidly growing — set to leap from 7 lakh in 2006 to 2.26 million in 2031 and crucial road projects remain stalled.

Suburban railway commuters have grown by 26 per cent on Central Railway and 12 per cent on Western Railway in the last five years. The result: 14-16 standing passengers per square metre of floor space in crush-hour rail traffic.