Major industry players including Larsen & Toubro, Tata Projects, JMC Projects and NCC Ltd have shown interest in one of the biggest tenders for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (MAHSR) project, covering 47 per cent of its alignment and four major stations.
Technical bids for the design and construction of 237 kilometres of mainline for Mumbai- Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail corridor were opened on Wednesday. The three bids, which were submitted, included one from Larsen & Toubro and others by two separate consortiums of companies. The first consortium includes Afcons Infrastructure, IRCON International and JMC Projects, while the second includes NCC, Tata Project Ltd and J Kumar Infra Projects.
This tender covers about 47 per cent of total alignment, between Vapi and Vadodara in the state of Gujarat. This includes four stations -- including Vapi, Billimora, Surat and Bharuch -- apart from river and 30 road crossings. This entire section is in Gujarat where more than 83 per cent of the land has been acquired for the project.
According to the National High-Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL), which is responsible for implementing the Mumbai – Ahmedabad high-speed project, the project alone will create more than 90,000 direct and indirect jobs during the construction phase. Not just the employment market, but production and manufacturing market are also expected to benefit from the project. It is estimated that close to 7.5 million MT of cement, 2.1 million MT of steel, and 140,000 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 see a major gain because of the project.
This comes at a time when the NHSRCL is working on 7 new projects -- including Delhi-Varanasi, Mumbai-Nagpur, Delhi-Ahmedabad, Chennai-Mysore, Delhi-Amritsar, Mumbai-Hyderabad and Varanasi-Howrah -- at an expected cost of around Rs 10 trillion.
The first High-Speed Rail corridor between Mumbai and Ahmedabad is being built with Japanese aid. With 12 stations in the States of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the corridor will have a length of 508.17 Km. The rail will cover 155.76 kms in the state of Maharashtra (7.04 Km in Mumbai sub-urban, 39.66 km in Thane district and 109.06 km in Palghar district), 4.3 km in the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and 348.04 km in the state of Gujarat.
The 12 stations will include - Mumbai, Thane, Virar, Boisar, (in Maharashtra), Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmedabad and Sabarmati (in Gujarat). While a limited-stop (in Surat & Vadodara) service will cover this distance in 1 hour and 58 minutes, the service with all stops will take 2 hour 57 minutes to cover this distance. High-speed rail will operate at a speed of 320 kilometre per hour on an elevated track on a viaduct all along except 26 km in Mumbai, which will be underground. All stations will be elevated except the Bandra Kurla Complex station (Mumbai), which will be underground.
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