L&T yet to respond after Supreme Court hearing over elevated road and tunnel projects: MMRDA officials
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has not yet replied to a formal request by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority requesting the country's largest infrastructure company to provide financial estimates and rationale that it presented in the Supreme Court in a recent case, said MMRDA officials Friday.
The email sent on June 10 gave L&T seven working days to respond, but there was no reply as of Friday.
'We are awaiting L&T's reply to our request. Once that is received, we intend to verify the information provided and rework the estimates, with the help of top experts in the field to be aligned with the spirit of transparency and fairness,' an MMRDA official said, requesting anonymity.
L&T did not comment when reached out by The Indian Express.
L&T had approached the Supreme Court challenging its disqualification for two major infrastructure tenders issued by MMRDA for elevated road and tunnel projects in Mumbai. During hearings in the Supreme Court, L&T claimed it had bid for the underground tunnel between Gaimukh and Fountain Hotel Junction at Rs 6,498 crore, and for the elevated road from Fountain Junction to Bhayander at Rs 5,554 crore.
The Supreme Court subsequently rejected the petition as 'infructuous' following MMRDA's decision to cancel and re-tender the two projects.
After the court hearing, MMRDA asked L&T for the same documents backing cost claims, such as rate justifications and supporting calculations. An MMRDA official said these figures would enable its Tender Review Committee to assess and, if the need arose, adopt them as benchmarks in re-estimating the project before launching the new bidding process.
Officials said that even after publicly announcing the numbers before the Supreme Court, L&T did not respond to MMRDA. 'L&T's quietness has questioned the validity of its court affidavits and its willingness to be cooperative in an open and transparent tender process,' added the official.
According to the official, L&T was disqualified by MMRDA for multiple reasons, including its failure to disclose the structural collapse of the Medigadda barrage in Telangana — a project it executed and which was later verified as failed by IIT Bombay and the Telangana Government.
Additionally, the company did not submit key documents required as part of the bidding process. As a result, MMRDA declared the bid 'non-responsive,' a decision that was subsequently upheld by both the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court
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