Bengaluru: BMRCL sets ball rolling for ORR Metro; Afcons, Shankaranarayana lowest bidders

BENGALURU: The long-pending Outer Ring Road Metro line received a fresh lease of life after Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) opened financial bids on Tuesday.
While the Centre is yet to approve the project, BMRCL decided to go ahead with the bids after chief minister BS Yediyurappa gave the green signal.
In December, BMRCL floated a tender for the 19-km elevated stretch with 13 stations along ORR. However, it was put on hold due to delay in getting the Centre’s approval.
Officials said nine firms participated in the tender floated in two packages. In the first — 9.8km elevated section with six stations (Central Silk Board Junction, HSR Layout, Agara Junction, Iblur Junction, Bellandur, Kadubeesanahalli and construction of a 2.8m flyover at Central Silk Board) — Mumbai-based Afcons Infrastructure Limited emerged as the lowest bidder with Rs 785 crore.
In the second — 9.7km elevated section with seven stations (Kodibisanhalli, Marathahalli, ISRO Layout, Doddanekkundi, DRDO Sports Complex, Saraswathi Nagar (Mahadevapura) and K R Puram and a 2km link line to Byappanahalli depot) — Bengaluru’s Shankaranarayana Constructions Pvt Ltd was the lowest bidder with Rs 623 crore.
Other firms including L&T, ITD Cementation, GR Infra, NCC, Gayathri – China State Construction Engineering Corporation Limited JV, Sunway – VNCPL JV, GGHB – CVCC JV participated in the tender.
BMRCL officials said they are yet to issue work orders to Afcons and Shankaranarayana. “We will hold another round of negotiations with the firms. We are expecting the Centre’s approval soon.”
BMRCL managing director Ajay Seth told TOI: “Bids were opened. Financial evaluation has to be carried out”.
Civil work is likely to begin in December 2020 and is expected to be completed in 2024-25. ORR Metro (Light Blue Line) is crucial for the city as it passes through the IT corridor housing several multinational companies. With 90% of land acquisition already completed and utility shifting contracts awarded, there are no major hurdles in implementing the Light Blue Line.
The estimated cost of the ORR Metro corridor has been revised to about Rs 5,300 crore excluding the construction of loops and ramps for the 2.8km flyover at Central Silk Board. Asian Development Bank (ADB) has agreed to finance the project.
According to the detailed project report (DPR) made in 2016, the Central Silk Board-KR Puram corridor was to cost Rs 4,202 crore and was to be operational by 2021. BMRCL, which floated a tender for the same stretch in 2018, cancelled the bids after the cash-strapped Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) emerged the lowest bidder in all packages.
The revised tender is also in accordance with the Centre’s 2017 Metro policy which mandated formation of UMTA and a comprehensive mobility plan (CMP) mandatory for planning Metro rail systems. It stated that no Metro project will be taken up unless UMTA is created as a statutory body and a CMP prepared. Though CMP has been recently prepared, UMTA is yet to be in place. According to the DPR prepared by BMRCL’s in-house team in October 2016, innovative financing techniques were to be deployed to mobilise funds to partly fund the project. However, only three firms: Embassy Group (Kadubeesanahalli), Intel Technology (Bellandur) and Prestige Group (Kodibisanahalli) pledged Rs 100 crore each to build ORR Metro stations so far using innovative financing.