L&T, HCC bag Mumbai Metro contracts

Mumbai, July 5:: Construction on Mumbai’s first underground Metro corridor is expected to take off soon, with the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) awarding contracts for civil works in seven packages.

Consortiums led by Larsen and Toubro (L&T) and HCC are among the winning bidders.

The 33.5-km long Metro 3 corridor will provide the much-needed northsouth connectivity in the city, as it will start from Colaba in south Mumbai and go up till SEEPZ (near Andheri), to the north of the city, passing through Bandra.

Having a total cost of construction of R18,114.9 crore, the project is being undertaken with loan assistance provided by JICA.

On Tuesday, MMRC announced that five Indian contractors in joint venture with international companies have been awarded contract for civil works in seven packages.

The underground corridor will have 27 stations (26 underground and 1 at grade).

Among the packages awarded, L&T along with its Chinese partner STEC has won two packages of over R5,200 crore. Stations in its package include Cuffe Parade, Vidhan Bhavan, Churchgate, Hutatma Chowk in the south and Marol Naka, MIDC and SEEPZ, in the north with associated tunnels from international airport to SEEPZ. The project is scheduled to be completed in 48 months.

HCC, with its Russian partner MMS, has bagged over R2,500-crore contract for construction of 4,072 m corridor of the underground metro line, including four underground stations at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Kalbadevi, Girgaon and Grant Road and twin bored tunnels of total length of 3,115 m. The project is to be completed in 55 months.

The other four packages have been bagged by JV of Soma-DOGUS of over R2,500 crore, ITD Cements-CECTPL of over R2,800 crore, and J Kumar-CRTG joint venture of over R4,900 crore.

In December, FE had reported that the final project cost of 33.5-km long Mumbai's first underground Metro may turn out to be about 30% higher than what was envisaged in the initial DPR (draft project report) prepared by RITES in 2011. The project, which was earlier slated to be a R23,136-crore project could now cost well close to R30,000 crore.

Senior officials in MMRC say the block estimates for the project were prepared on the basis of the estimates taken by DMRC (Delhi Metro Rail Corporation) for its underground project in 2011, as there was no benchmark available for such a project in Mumbai.

However, the DPR did not pencil in the differences that may arise due to variance in the specifications of the Mumbai and Delhi projects.