Delhi-Meerut RRTS: Chinese Company Wins Contract For 5.6 Km Ashok Nagar-Sahibabad Underground Stretch

Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Company Limited, a Chinese company, is set to build a 5.6 kilometre underground stretch of the Delhi-Meerut Rapid Rail Transit System (RRTS) project, reports The Print.

The National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) is executing this project, which once completed will be India’s first RRTS corridor. RRTS reduces the commute time from Delhi to Meerut from the current three-four hours to less than an hour.

The underground stretch of the corridor runs between New Ashok Nagar to Sahibabad. Bids were invited on 9 November 2019 for the construction of the tunnel.

“Approvals have to be taken at various levels for bids that are funded by multilateral agencies. This bid was also awarded following the set procedure and guidelines. Now, all the civil work tenders of the 82-km-long Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor have been awarded and the construction is going on in full swing to commission the project in time,” an NCRTC spokesperson said.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is funding the 82-km long Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor. According to the ADB’s guidelines, vendors from all its member countries, without any discrimination, are allowed to participate in the projects funded by the bank.

ADB, established in 1966, is headquartered in Manila of Philippines. While India is a founding member of this regional development bank, China joined this organisation in 1986. Currently Japan and the United States each hold the largest proportion of shares in this bank, successively followed by China, India and Australia.