Bids for the Bandra-Versova and the Haji Ali-Nariman Point links, part of an ambitious plan to reduce travel time to downtown Mumbai by leveraging on the adjoining Arabian Sea, will be invited by April 2011, a senior Government official said.

"We plan to invite bids by April next year," Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC)'s Vice-Chairman and Managing Director, Sonia Sethi, told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

Sethi said MSRDC has already appointed consultants for both the projects and asked them to submit feasibility reports in a year's time for expediting the projects at the earliest.

The Haji Ali-Nariman Point link, phase II-B of the Western Freeway Sea Link project, is tipped to be the most difficult of all the links as it involves constructing a 2.2 kilometre sealink from Haji Ali to Priyadarshini Park and then a 3.8 km underground, part-cut-and-cover tunnel to Nariman Point.

The 10 kilometre Bandra-Versova link is slated to be part-road and part-bridge.

MSRDC will be inviting tenders from companies/ consortiums under the build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis.

Companies like Reliance Infrastructure, Larsen and Toubro and HCC, among others, have in the past evinced interest or are working on big-ticket infrastructure projects in the city.