The city’s second Metro line, held up by delays and poor planning, has finally got one bidder.

Of the seven consortiums that had qualified, only the one led by Reliance Infrastructure Ltd has placed a bid before the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA). This came in after the short-listed players had requested repeated extensions of the deadline since December 2008.

Reliance Infrastructure has teamed up with Canada-based SNC Lavlin to bid for the Rs 8,250-crore line along the Charkop-Bandra-Mankhurd corridor. “They have quoted a viability gap fund of Rs 2,298 crore. This is a very vital step after delays in submission, mainly due to the global slowdown,” said Ratnakar Gaikwad, Metropolitan Commissioner.

He described the bid as a “reasonable” one and said the MMRDA will take a final call within a month.

Reliance Infrastructure has already bagged the contract for the first Metro corridor along the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar stretch. The 11.7-km corridor is expected to be commissioned by July 2010.

MMRDA sources say the break-up of the public-private-partnership model would see Reliance Infrastructure spending Rs 5,952 crore, the Centre providing a viability gap fund of Rs 1,532 crore and the implementing agency providing the remaining Rs 766 crore.

“We’re confident that we will get the contract as the bid we’ve made is a reasonable one,” said Reliance Infrastructure official, requesting anonymity.

Some sources, however, say the Reliance Industries-led consortium did not submit the bid though officials had gone to the MMRDA headquarters on the Bandra-Kurla Complex.

The other players in the fray for the 32 km corridor were the Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries with Siemens and Gammon, GE India-L&T-CA-IDPL, Tata Power-Mitsubishi-Tata Realty’s Pioneer Infrastructure, GVK-Bombardier-YTL, IL&FS-Soma Constructions-Punj Lloyd, and Essar-Alstom.

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