The National High-Speed Railway Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) on Friday invited bids for the construction of a 21-km long tunnel for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (MAHSR). The last date of submission of these bids is March 2, 2022. The package is open to Japanese and Indian companies, said an official of NHSRCL.
"The tunnel will be built between the underground station at Bandra-Kurla Complex and Shilphata in Thane district of Maharashtra," said Sushma Gaur, spokesperson of the NHSRCL.
"The bids have been invited for the tunneling work 20.36 km underground, including a 7-km long undersea tunnel to be built using Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) and New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM)," she added.
The tunnel will be a single tube twin-track tunnel having a diameter of 13.1m which starts from BKC and ends at Shilphata. The total length of the tunnel is 20.37 km which includes 7 km undersea.
Of the 20.37km, 15.42 km of tunneling will be carried out with Tunnel Boring Machines and the remaining 4.96 km will be carried out with the NATM method. The tunnel will cross the Thane creek and the survey work under the creek was done through the underwater static refraction technique and was completed.
Asked about the opening date of bids, an official of NHSRCL said, "Both the bids (Technical and Financial) are most likely to be opened in the first week of March 2022. First, we will open technical bids, followed by financial bids."
During per bid conference, seven Indian companies had shown interest in the construction of the undersea tunnel for the ambitious MAHSR corridor.
