The civic body wants a dedicated legal consultant on call as the 60-km Versova-Dahisar-Bhayander corridor moves through land, environmental and contractor disputes governed by international FIDIC contract rules.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation wants a lawyer on retainer, and not just any lawyer. For the Mumbai Coastal Road Project (North), the civic body has proposed bringing in former Joint Law Officer Preeti Purandare as legal consultant for a year, at Rs 1 lakh a month. Total cost to the BMC: Rs 12 lakh.
That's a small number next to the project itself. The Versova-Dahisar-Bhayander Coastal Road, which links up with the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, is a roughly 60-km stretch estimated to cost Rs 22,000 crore. It's split into seven packages for execution, and it's being tracked directly by the Chief Minister's Office, according to the BMC proposal reported by the Free Press Journal.
Why the legal firepower now. The project runs on FIDIC international contract standards, the kind that generate disputes almost by design when timelines slip or scope changes. A senior civic official quoted in the report said the retainer's brief will cover land acquisition and compensation disputes, environmental and Coastal Regulatory Zone permissions, mangrove-related issues, statutory approvals, utility shifting, maritime and creek permissions, tender and contractual disputes, changes in scope, delay claims, contractor arbitration and potential litigation.
That's not a short list. And with multiple contractors working across seven packages simultaneously, the BMC clearly expects friction, whether it's over extension of time claims or who's liable when a permission gets held up.
The environmental side is already in motion. In June, the BMC brought in the Maharashtra State Forest Development Corporation for compensatory tree plantation, part of the clearances the coastal road needs to move forward. Under that arrangement, MSFDC gets Rs 12.81 crore to plant 15,843 trees across 15 hectares in Karanjade, Panvel, and to maintain them for seven years. It's the kind of offset work that CRZ and forest clearances typically demand for a project cutting through sensitive coastline.
The pitch to commuters remains the same one the BMC has been making for years: cut the Versova-to-Bhayandar run from 90-120 minutes down to 15-20. Once it's built, the North stretch is meant to connect with the Mumbai Coastal Road South, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link and the Bandra-Versova Sea Link, stitching together an unbroken coastal corridor from South Mumbai all the way to Bhayandar.
The project is targeted for completion by December 2028, with March 2029 held as the outer deadline. Given how large infrastructure timelines in Mumbai tend to move, that gap between target and outer deadline is doing a lot of quiet work. Whether the legal retainer manages to keep contractor disputes from eating into either date is the thing to watch next.
Be the first to comment
Join the argument. No password, just your email or a passkey.