While seven responses had been received to the MMRDA’s call for Expressions of Interest, all seven have now been prequalified and will be invited to participate in the two-stage bidding process, said officials. The seven players in the fray are Bombardier Transportation India; Reliance Energy Ltd with Hitachi; Reliance Engineering Associates with Siemens; L&T with Scomi; a consortium of KPTL, JMC and Intamin; Videocon with Aerospace and Gammon India Ltd with MET Rail. They will now be requested to send in their technical and financial bids, to be opened through a two-packet system.

Metropolitan Commissioner Dr Ratnakar Gaikwad said the bidder should be picked by May.

The MMRDA is currently working on a masterplan for a monorail transit system in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, aimed mostly at servicing those routes currently not covered by the suburban railway network and the proposed Metro Rail. As a pilot project, the MMRDA will first construct about 20 km to 25 km of monorail and has appointed Government of India undertaking RITES as consultant to prepare the masterplan and a Detailed Project Report for the priority corridors. Among the first routes will be Malabar Hill to Bandra Kurla Complex (about 25 km) and Chembur to Mahul (10 km).