National High Speed Rail Corp opens technical bids for Mumbai- Ahmedabad Bullet train corridor

National High Speed Rail Corp Ltd (NHSRCL) on Wednesday said it has opened technical bids for construction of 237 km stretch of the much awaited high speed Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train corridor.

The tender covers about 47% of total alignment of 508 km, between Vapi and Vadodara in Gujarat. This includes four stations -- Vapi, Billimora, Surat and Bharuch, 24 river and 30 road crossings, the company said. This entire section is in Gujarat, where more than 83% of the land has been acquired for the project. The implementing agency, NHSRCL is an special purpose vehicle, with equity participation by the railway ministry and two Gujarat and Maharashtra government.

As many as three bidders -- Afcons Infrastructure– IRCON International– JMC Projects India consortium, Larsen & Toubro, and NCC– Tata Projects- J. Kumar Infra Projects- High Speed Rail Consortium -- participated in the competitive bidding.

The ambitious bullet train project is expected to create more than 90,000 direct and indirect jobs during its construction. “It is estimated that close to 75 lakh MT of cement, 21 lakh MT of steel, and 1.4 lakh 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 gain big time through the project,” it said.

The project was announced around five years back and few since then, there have been reports of a delay in completion of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail corridor. The project was slated to be completed in 2022.

Earlier this month, railways board chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav that in projects like these, there are two important things—fixing the alignment and design as well getting environment, forest and land acquisition-related clearance. In this case, barring land acquisition, there is no other hurdle.

“In any linear project like the bullet train project, work can only begin when a certain amount of land is available. Within three months, we are expecting to acquire 95-100% land in Gujarat. In Maharashtra also we are expecting that in next three to six months the land acquisition will improve a lot. Once land acquisition is clear, we can start the physical work. So that will be the appropriate time to reassess project implementation time,” he had said, adding that that the real timeline of the completion of the project can be provided only in the next three-six months.