Mumbai: Construction major Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has emerged as the lowest bidder for the 3.81 km long underground tunnel that will link Orange Gate and Marine drive of the coastal road project.
The project will decongest stretches of road like Crawford market junction, GPO junction and even CSMT junction as this road will be like a bypass for traffic headed to and fro from Marine drive.
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A Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) official said, “Even though L&T has emerged as the lowest bidder, the decision to award the contract will be taken after scrutiny of the bid documents.”
L&T has quoted a sum of ₹7,765 crore, which almost ₹1,000 crore more than the estimated cost. Once built, this will be the longest underground road tunnel within the island city. The 3+3 lane will take 4 years to complete. There will be two lane one-way ramps to connect the Eastern Freeway and two lane one-way tunnels to connect to Coastal Road and Marine drive.
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The financial bids for the project were opened on July 20 with the MMRDA expecting the project to cost ₹6,000 crore. The two final bidders, which included L&T and J Kumar Infraprojects, quoted ₹7,765 crore and ₹8,589 crore respectively.
The underground tunnel, whose alignment is planned below SVP road, will criss-cross above or below the Metro 3 (Colaba-Bandra-Seepz) corridor between Grant Road and Girgaum Metro station. It is expected to reduce the travel time between these two destinations to 8 to 10 minutes as against the existing time of 30 to 40 minutes via Fort and Marine Drive.
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Earlier, MMRDA had planned for an elevated corridor. The viaduct was to come up at a height of 5.5 m at Girgaum but many idols are of the same height or taller, when they are transported by truck, the height would be invariably more than the viaduct.
