L&T construction arm is lowest bidder for Uttarakhand railway project

The Rs 3,338 crore order is a contract from Rail Vikas Nigam for package-4 of a new broad-gauge line between Rishikesh and Karnaprayag

After Larsen & Toubro’s (L&T’s) engineering business snapped up orders worth Rs 10,000 crore from Hindustan Petroleum joint venture, its construction arm has now emerged the lowest bidder for tunnelling work on the ongoing 125-km-long Rishikesh-Karnaprayag railway line in Uttarakhand.

The order, worth Rs 3,338 crore, is a contract from Rail Vikas Nigam (RVNL), whose financial bids concluded recently, said sources close to the development.

The scope of this project includes completing the tunnelling, construction shaft, and ancillary work in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.    

This will require the biggest tunnel boring machine (TBM) to be deployed in the Himalayan geology. The TBM bored tunnel length of 20.807 km is the maximum in any project in the Himalayan region.

The purpose of providing a rail link between Rishikesh and Karnaprayag is for facilitating easy access to the pilgrimage centre in Uttarakhand, connecting the new trade centre, development of backward areas, and to serve the catchment population.  

The railway line traverses the rugged Himalayan terrain, with the alignment oriented across and sometimes sub-parallel to the major thrust zones of the Himalayas.

The company is already engaged in the construction of Rishikesh–Karnaprayag Tunnel 2 package by RVNL, comprising tunnels, bridges, and formation works.

This project, won by the heavy civil infrastructure business of the company in December 2019, consists of the main tunnel, with a parallel escape tunnel and ballastless track running inside the main tunnel.