L&T, Tata Projects, JMC, NCC in race for India's first bullet train tender

Technical bids for the design and construction of 237 kilometres of mainline for Mumbai- Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail corridor were opened on Wednesday.

Mega industry players, including Larsen & Toubro (L&T), Tata Projects, JMC Projects and NCC have evinced interest in the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail (MAHSR) or bullet train project.

As technical bids for the design and construction of 237 kilometers (kms) in the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor was opened on Wednesday, a total of three bids were submitted — by L&T and two separate consortium of companies. 

The first consortium includes Afcons Infrastructure, IRCON International and JMC Projects, while the second group of companies include NCC, Tata Projects and J. Kumar Infra Projects.   

This tender covers about 47 per cent of the total alignment, between Vapi and Vadodara in Gujarat. This includes four stations — including Vapi, Billimora, Surat and Bharuch — and also includes a 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.

The National High-Speed Rail Corporation (NHSRCL), which is responsible for executing the Mumbai –Ahmedabad high-speed project, said it will alone create more than 90,000 direct and indirect jobs during the construction phase. Not just the employment market but even the manufacturing sector is expected to gain from 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. All of these will be produced in India. In addition, large construction machinery is another segment that will gain big time owing to the project. 

This comes at a time when the NHSRCL is working on seven 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 a total of 12  stations in Maharashtra, Gujarat and union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, the corridor will have a length of 508.17 kms. The rail will cover 155.76 kms in Maharashtra (7.04 kms in Mumbai sub-urban, 39.66 kms in Thane district and 109.06 kms in Palghar district), 4.3 kms in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and 348.04 kms in Gujarat.

The high-speed corridor will cover a total of 12 stations, namely Mumbai, Thane, Virar and Boisar (in Maharashtra) as well as Vapi, Bilimora, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmedabad and Sabarmati (in Gujarat). 

The high-speed rail will be operating at a speed of 320 km per hour at an elevated track on a viaduct all along except 26 km in Mumbai, which will be underground.