News Source: Livemint
MUMBAI: Larsen & Toubro has emerged as the lowest bidder to build the largest segment of the upcoming high speed rail line between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The company bid ₹24,985 crore for constructing the 237.1 km line for the bullet train project, beating two other bids led by Tata Projects and Afcons Infrastructure Ltd.
L&T emerged as the lowest bidder after the National High-Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL) opened financial bids submitted by the three infrastructure development firms for package C4 on Monday. This package is the largest among all for the line’s construction, representing 47% of the main line of 508.17 km. L&T’s segment starts at Maharashtra – Gujarat border and goes up to Vadodara station and includes four stations, at Vapi, Bilimora, Surat and Bharuch in Gujarat.
The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train corridor is being built at a cost of ₹1.08 lakh crore with funding from the Japan International Cooperation Agency. NHSRCL had earlier said that the project’s execution has slowed because of the covid-19 outbreak.
The NHSRCL invited bids for the Mumbai – Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (also called the MAHSR Bullet Train project) on March 15, 2019. Technical bids were opened on September 23 in which three bidders qualified. The other two bidders were a consortium of Tata Projects Ltd. – J Kumar Infraprojects Ltd. – NCC Ltd. JV and Afcons Infrastructure Ltd. – Ircon International Ltd. – JMC Projects India Ltd. JV.
The scope of the work includes design and construction of civil works along with building works including testing and commissioning on design-build for double line high-speed railway, involving viaducts, bridges, maintenance depots, tunnel, stations etc.