Only 3 in race for Mumbai financial services centre

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has received bids from three designing firms to prepare a master plan for the proposed International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in the business district of Bandra Kurla Complex.

"We have received three bids for the project," said Metropolitan Commissioner U P S Madan. The project involves preparation of a detailed layout master plan and urban design guidelines for the planned IFSC.

Additional Metropolitan Commissioner Praveen Darade said that out of the three responses received, two are joint ventures with international agencies. They are Tata Consulting Engineers in a tie-up with Townland Consultants (Hong Kong) and Ahmedabad-based INI Design Studios and a joint venture of Ramboll with Henning Larsen Architects (both from Denmark). It will take around three weeks to award the contract to one of the three bidders.

A couple of months back, as many as 31 private firms had shown interest in designing project, but now only three have turned up. There were repeated extensions for the submission date due to poor response.

With MMRDA now in the stage of scrutinising the three responses, it is yet to take a call about sharing the same plot for the bullet train project. A decision is yet to be arrived at on whether the bullet train terminus will be under the IFSC or will be moved away from Bandra Kurla Complex. Depending upon the decision, there will be a need to revise the master plan and designs, which would be a time-consuming affair.

There are also plans to have India's first international arbitration centre – Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA) - at the upcoming IFSC. Initially, it will be located at Express Towers in Nariman Point, on completion of IFSC it will be moved to the BKC.