National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), which is executing the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, has invited bids for the 21-km underground tunnel work between Mumbai and Thane for the high-speed rail corridor.
The work will include a 7-km undersea tunnel, which will connect underground stations at Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla Complex and Shilphata in Thane district.
Officials said the package is open for tenders from Japanese and Indian companies.
The Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail or Bullet Project is 508 km long, of which 352 km is in Gujarat (348 km) and Dadra and Nagar Haveli (4 km) while the remaining 156 km is in Maharashtra. Out of 352 km, L&T is the executive agency for 325 km length.
At present, out of the total 1,396 hectares of land acquired for the project, a total of 77.68 per cent (1084.48 hectares) has been completed. While 97.71 per cent of the acquisition has been completed in Gujarat and 100 per cent in Dadra and Nagar Haveli, in Maharashtra, 33.06 per cent of the required land has been acquired.
According to officials, the tunnel will be a single-tube twin-track with a diameter of 13.1 metres. It will start from BKC and end at Shilphata. The tunnel length in Mumbai for Package 2 will be 20.37 km, of which 7 km will be under sea.
An official said that out of 20.37 km, 15.42 km of tunneling would be done with three different tunnel boring machines, while the remaining 4.96 km would be executed with the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM).
The depth of the tunnel will be between 25 to 40 meters.
“The tunnel will cross the Gulf of Thane. The survey work in this regard has been successfully completed under the creek using underwater static refraction technique,” said an official.
The last date for submission of tender is March 2022.
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