A project conceptualised in 1987 with a estimated cost of Rs. 50 crore, finalised sometime in late 90s for Rs. 400 crore and planned to be opened for public in 2004, finally got completed in 2009 for cost of Rs. 1600 crore. This is a brief story of bridge commonly known as Bandra Worli Sea Link in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
I started my professional career in Oct 2003 with a company called Marico in its office at Bandra. I used to drive on my two-wheeler 13 kms one way (from my home) to office which took 30-45 minutes. While I joined the company I had people telling me “few more days and you would take 15 minutes as this bridge gets completed in 2004”. I was waiting for that day and the day finally arrived in Jul 2009. A bit late, I had already left Marico by then, did my MBA from ISB and then joined Aditya Birla Group. What a co-incidence, I waited for 5 years to use that sea-link and the bridge got delayed exactly for that period. On a lighter note, even if it were open before I left Marico, I would not have been able to use it, because I use a two wheeler and it is not allowed on the sea-link.
The bridge was inaugurated recently with much hype. Many big names were invited for the inauguration and it included the president of ruling party, the prime minister of country, former chief minister if state and others. This despite knowing that we have made a structure costing 4 times more than its projected cost and taking twice the budgeted time.
So what does this mean? Have we provided an in principle approval for all such infrastructure projects to over run its budgeted cost by few times and get delayed in implementation by few years. The media coverage and the praise that the inaugural ceremony received were really surprising. If we build all our infrastructure projects at this speed, we would certainly be a different place to live in a few decades down the line. As per the website of this bridge; it is 5.6 km long and the expected benefit is Rs. 100 crore per annum savings in vehicle operating cost due to reduction in congestion in the existing roads and lower vehicle operating cost on the bridge.
With these statistics I am afraid of few questions that my son would ask me once he knows some basic mathematics which would be 3 years from now. I expect the following questions and do not have any answers:
• This is a brilliant piece of engineering dad. Your generation build a bridge of 5.6 kms on sea and spent Rs. 1600 crore for building the same. This would mean Rs. 285 crore per kms; isn’t that awesome. Can we check the cost per km of a bridge in some other countries to see how it matches with international standards? Ah, maybe I need to do some more searches on the internet.
• The cost you spent is Rs. 1600 crore and the benefit expected is Rs. 100 crore per annum. Hence assuming that these numbers are accurate you will take 16 years to recover the cost, is that correct? Yes dear but I am not sure if it was planned that way. My son is too young to understand the concepts of discounting and compounding and hence if we were to calculate a discounted payback it would be much more than 16 years.
The site also cites reduction in accidents as one of the benefits of this sea-link. Though I am not an engineer by qualification and hence may not be the right person to comment on this, but I fail to understand how a bridge can reduce accidents.
All in all there is only one conclusion that I can come at. This sea-link and its inaugural ceremony is a testimony to Indian politics on how to depict a shoddy performance as the most superlative one. If there is an award ceremony on eyewash of the decade, I am sure the sea-link would be on the top of that list. I would also sincerely request some of the most respectable politicians to stay away from such inaugural ceremonies as it suggests a stamp of approval from them which may not be their intention.
It’s time we need an execution commission instead of planning commission.
