Tata Project And L&T In Race As Technical Bids For Bullet Train Project Opens

The Afcons-IRCON consortium, the NCC-Tata Project consortium and Larsen & Toubro are in the race as the technical bids for the design and construction of the 237 km main line of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail corridor project opened on Wednesday (23 September).

The tender covers 47 per cent of the total line length of 508 km between Vapi and Vadodara.

This includes four stations namely Vapi, Bilimora, Surat and Bharuch, 24 river and 30 road crossings.

The entire section under this proposal is in Gujarat, where more than 83 per cent of the land needed has been acquired.

Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail corridor, the first bullet train project in the country, is being built at a total cost of Rs 1.08 lakh crore.

The route will be 85 per cent elevated and will boast 11 per cent tunnels, and by travelling at a maximum speed of around 320 kmph, the proposed train could significantly cut down travel time from the current seven hours.

Executed by the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), there are a total of three bidders involving seven major infrastructural companies that have participated in the competitive bidding.

According to NHSRCL, all bidders are Indian companies.

NHSRCL expects the project to create more than 90,000 direct and indirect jobs during the construction stage.

Not just the employment market but the production and manufacturing markets are also expected to gain with the project. It is estimated that close to 75 lakh million tonnes (MT) of cement, 21 lakh MT of steel, and 1.4 lakh MT of structural steel will be used in the construction and all of which shall be produced in India.

In addition to this, large construction machinery is another market that will gain big time through the project.

NHSRCL had earlier said that the project's execution had been dealt a heavy blow due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The Centre has plans for seven more bullet train projects. The corridors will be Delhi-Ahmedabad, Delhi-Amritsar, Delhi-Varanasi, Chennai-Mysore, Mumbai-Hyderabad, Mumbai-Nagpur and Varanasi-Howrah.