NEW DELHI: Amid ongoing commemorations of the completion of the Modi government’s 9 years at the Centre, India’s highly ambitious mega bullet train project got a major pace on June 8 with a contract signed between the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) and the M/S Afcons Infrastructure Limited.
The contract was signed for the construction of India’s first 7-km long undersea rail tunnel as a part of the proposed total 21-km long rail tunnel of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High speed Rail Corridor to run the country’s first bullet train tentatively by 2026.
Official sources said that the underground tunnel would be constructed to facilitate a swift run of bullet trains between Mumbai HSR station and Shilphata in Maharashtra with a capacity of having double lines.
As per the contract, the MS/ Afcons Infrastructure Limited will construct the tunnel a using Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) and the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM).
According to Rajendra Prasad, Managing Director of NHSRCL, the construction of the tunnel is one of the most challenging contracts of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR corridor, which includes the construction of the country’s first twin-track undersea rail tunnel of 7 km at Thane Creek.
According to an NHSRCL official source, the tunnel will be a single tube tunnel to accommodate twin tracks for both up and down tracks.
“Not only this, 39 equipment rooms at 37 locations will be also constructed adjoining tunnel location as part of the package”, said an official source
They added that 3 Tunnel Boring Machines will be used to construct about 16 km of the tunnel portion and the New Austrian Tunneling Method to construct the remaining portion.
The most interesting feature is of the proposed rail tunnel is that it would be about 25 to 65 meters deep from the ground levels.
Meanwhile, some official sources informed this newspaper here that the technical bids of this tender were opened on February 9 this year while the financials were opened on April 6 this year.
The contract signed between HSRCL and M/S Afcons Infrastructure Limited has been valued at 6,397 crores.
Sources in the Ministry of Railway also added that works of more than 60 km of the viaduct on the Gujarat side of this bullet train project have also been completed in addition to works started on the Bandra-Kurla station in Maharashtra.
Besides this, the works on infrastructure of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed corridor to run the bullet are in progress over the 508 km length of corridor on which India’s first bullet train is expected to run by 2926 at the speed of 350 kmph, covering the entire distance in 3 hours.
The construction and civil works of this project are in full speed. The bullet train will run a standard gauge built with Shinkansen technology.
The bullet train project was initially targeted to be completed by 2023 but it is running behind the scheduled deadline of completion because of some delays that occurred in land acquisition in Maharashtra side and the Corona-induced lockdown imposed across the country.