Once built, it would be the longest sea link in the country but its fate is uncertain with bidders apprehensive to vie for the contract. “Now we’re exploring other financial models to take up this project. We would require 40 per cent of the total cost from the Central government. Other government agencies would share the remaining 60 per cent as they too would benefit from the project — agencies like Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd (CIDCO), etc,” a senior bureaucrat said.

He added that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority to fund the Rs 7,500-crore project alone.

But the government was not always expected to raise funds for the mega project. In February 2008, after an acrimonious litigation which ended with the Supreme Court stating that the state government had unfairly disqualified the Reliance Energy Ltd-led consortium from the bidding process for what was then a PPP project, the government went on to state that the Anil Ambani consortium’s bid, the lowest, was “too unrealistic”. The government then opted for the state-funded model at a much higher cost, after losing years of groundwork to the failed PPP plan.