The companies Larsen & Toubro and Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd have emerged as the lowest bidders for the contract to drill the twin tunnels beneath the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) that will connect Thane and Borivli.
The twin-tunnel project has been split into two packages and only two companies evinced interest in bagging both these packages when the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) called for quotations from infrastructure companies.
Having scrutinised the submissions of the two companies, on Wednesday, officials finalised the awarding of the works. According to the details available, Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd has emerged as the firm with the lowest quotation to execute one package. The second one is likely to be undertaken by Larsen & Toubro, which had offered the lowest quote.
First package of Twin Tunnel
The first package involves construction of twin tunnels from Borivli, up to 5.75 kilometres long, towards Thane, while the second package, consisting of 6.09km-long twin tunnels, will originate from the Thane end.
Each of the tunnels will have three lanes, six in all, with interconnecting tunnels for emergencies.
The project is expected to be complete in four years, if it proceeds without delays. Tunnelling will happen simultaneously at the four construction sites. A total of 23.68 kilometres of roads will be paved inside the tunnels, while another two kilometres of approach roads will be laid. Excluding the approach roads, each of the tunnels will be 11.84km long.
After twin-tunnel's construction, travel time will reduce to 15 min
As per the MMRDA’s plans, the East-West connectivity project alignment will be at Ekta Nagar at Magathane in Borivli, emerging next to Tikuji-Ni-Wadi at Manpada in Thane. Currently, by road, it takes over an hour to cover the 24 km-stretch from Magathane to Tikuji-Ni-Wadi. Once this project is built, 23 metres beneath the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, travel time will reduce to around 15 minutes.
The project will require diversion of 57.02 hectares of forest land, an area equivalent to 39 Wankhede Stadiums. The SGNP’s total area is 106.5 sq km or 10,650 hectares. This means the area sought to be diverted is 0.5 per cent of the total area of the national park.
