Bullet train project: NHSRCL opens technical bids for Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed corridor

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The National High Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL) opened technical bids for two packages – procurement and fabrication, and design and construction, of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail Corridor on September 25.

The packages cover procurement and fabrication of 28 steel bridges over highway roads, railway lines, rivers, road crossings and other structures; and design and construction of five bridges, 25 crossings, an 88 km viaduct between Ahmedabad-Vadodara, and an elevated HSR station at Anand/Nadiad, ANI reported.

Bidders for the procurement and fabrication package included Afcons Infrastructure, HSR Consortium, Larsen & Toubro – IHI Infrastructure Systems Consortium, NCC, J Kumar Infra Projects, and Tata Projects, it added.

Construction of the steel bridges is estimated to require around 70,000 MT of steel for which the MHSRCL had already notified industries for demand.

These recent bids cover 64 percent or 325 km of 508 km of the total project, including HSR stations at Anand/Nadiad, Bharuch, Billimora, Surat and Vapi, the report said.

The NHSRCL had earlier opened bids for 237 km viaduct between Vapi-Vadodara, four elevated HSR stations and a train depot in Surat on September 23. The first tender covered 47 percent of the total line length of 508 km between Vapi and Vadodara. The entire section under this proposal is in Gujarat, where more than 83 percent of the land needed has been acquired.

The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train corridor is being built at a cost of Rs 1.08 lakh crore. 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.