The Bombay High Court’s decision to quash the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearances given to the Mumbai Coastal Road project has come as a huge setback for Larsen and Toubro (L&T) and Hindustan Construction Company (HCC).
The firms were executing the ₹14,000-crore project to connect Kandivali with Marine Lines in South Mumbai.
S.N. Subrahmanyan, MD & CEO, L&T said, “It is a setback for us. I worry why such action has been taken. We have been awarded the project in a fair and transparent manner. It’s for the government to go to the Supreme Court.”
The 29.2-km-long, eight-lane expressway was expected to reduce the travelling time from Kandivali to Marine Lines from 120 minutes to just 40 minutes.
R. Shankar Raman, Group CFO, L&T, said, “A silver lining in the dark cloud is that it has happened upfront. More marquee the project, more activism is expected.”
India’s richest municipal corporation, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) is the nodal agency for the development of the Mumbai Coastal Road Project.
L&T had been awarded ₹7,500 worth of contracts while HCC, in a joint venture with Hyundai Development Corporation, was executing ₹2,126 crore of contracts.
An HCC official said that the company is awaiting directions from its client, MCGM (the nodal agency), which had already filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against the Bombay High Court order.
