L&T To Bag Bullet Train's Nearly Rs 25,000-Crore Project Order

Larsen & Toubro is set to win one of the largest infrastructure tenders in Indian infrastructure history, as it has emerged the lowest bidder for the design and construction of civil works for 237 km of the alignment of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail corridor.

In a keenly fought bidding process for bagging a prestigious mega rail project, L&T has pipped consortiums led by Tata Projects and Afcons Infrastructure to bag the order by placing its bid at Rs 24,985 crore.

Of late, the project, delayed for various reasons, has got the traction with ground work set in motion.

Three bidders involving seven major infrastructural companies had participated in the competitive bidding process.

The bidders other than L&T were the Afcons Infrastructure-IRCON International-JMC Projects India consortium, and the Tata Projects-NCC-J Kumar Infra Projects-HSR consortium.

According to sources, for the package, namely C4, the Tata Projects-led consortium bid at around Rs 28,000 crore, while the Afcons Infrastructure-led consortium bid at close to Rs 37,000 crore.

The bidding for the bullet train project assumes significance as the government is believed to be keen to get the first high-speed train of the country operational before the next general elections scheduled in 2024.

The tender covers about 47 per cent of the total alignment of 508 km, between Vapi (Zaroli village at Maharashtra-Gujarat border) and Vadodara.

This includes four stations — Vapi, Bilimora, Surat and Bharuch and Surat Depot.

Aiming at reducing the travel time between Mumbai and Ahmedabad to under two hours, the ambitious initiative of the government is getting technical and financial assistance from Japan.

Estimated to cost about Rs 1.1 lakh crore, the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is financing 81 per cent of the project.

NHSRCL had invited bids for the project on 15 March and technical bids were opened on 23 September this year. In less than one month, the financial bids have also been opened, after rigorous evaluation of technical bids.

According to NHSRCL, it is expected to generate 90,000 direct and indirect jobs during the construction phase of the project.