There were only two bidders in the final round for the prestigious Mumbai trans-harbour link project, which will undoubtedly become a major landmark for the city. One was Reliance Energy, the power utility and part-promoter of Reliance Power, which Anil Ambani is now repositioning as a major infrastructure play. The other was Sea King Infrastructure, said to be controlled by Mukesh Ambani along with his right hand Anand Jain.

There are quite a few large infrastructure developers in the country these days. When compared to them, the two final bidders for the trans-harbour project are relative newcomers – though financially strong. Many of the other companies are listed entities and funds are not a problem for them. Established foreign players are very keen to tie up with local companies for such large projects, so technology and expertise are not a problem.

The trans-harbour link is a true marquee project, the kind of which every ambitious infrastructure developer dreams about. Then, why were the other developers not very aggressive in their bidding and left the field wide open to these two bidders? Major infrastructure developers like L&T and Gammon India did not bid in the final round, even though they had cleared the preliminary evaluation stage. Was it because the project itself is not viable, or because they didn’t believe they could outbid the Ambani brothers?

If that was not curious enough, the two final bids were so wide apart that it was bizarre. While Reliance Energy’s winning bid asked for a concession period of under 10 years, Sea King’s bid was for a concession period of 75 years!

How could the bids be so different? There is nothing to suspect that the bids were made without a careful evaluation of the capital investments required and the future revenue potential. Assuming both the bidders were serious, one of them made a spectacular error. If this had happened a century earlier, maybe we could have suspected a calculation error. These days school kids master Microsoft Excel immediately after they are done with Mozart’s first composition, the one about the twinkling star in the sky. There is no way we can suspect an old fashioned calculation error behind the wide disparity between the bids.

Some journalist did question the concerned state minister on this. As usual, he didn’t have a straight answer.

The project had kicked up a controversy even at the pre-bid evaluation process, when Reliance Energy was disqualified by the independent evaluation agency Crisil. The Mumbai High Court agreed with the disqualification, but the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Reliance Energy.

Now that the project has been awarded to Reliance Energy, the question is whether Anil Ambani is being too optimistic? The Rs4,000 crore first phase of the project is expected to be completed in four years, if there are no delays. Remember the total concession period is below 10 years, which will leave less than six years for Reliance Energy to recover all the costs and make a profit! Is there something in this project which only Anil Ambani has noticed?