HCC has got biggest of the three projects, which comprises strengthening of the existing two lanes and constructing additional two lanes on the 64-km Kolaghat-Khargpur stretch of national highway number 6.

The Rs 391-crore project is being entirely funded by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). Agreement paper for the project was signed last week.

While L&T has bagged Rs 300-crore Chandipur-Bhadrak contract, involving four laning of 75 km, Gammon Atlanta has been awarded Rs 120-crore Bhubaneswar-Khurda project, involving four laning of 28 km in Orissa.

NHAI has already issued the letter of intent to Gammon Atlanta and will be signing the project agreement this week. Gammon Atlanta is a joint venture between Gammon India and Atlanta Construction Company.

Some 20 companies had submitted technical bids for the Kolaghat-Khargpur contract, out of which four companies were asked to put in financial bids. While Mumbai-based Shapoorji Pallonji had quoted Rs 397.77 crore, Gammuda-WCT, a Malaysian joint venture, had bid at Rs 473 crore. The third company, Russia-based Centrodostroy, was disqualified for failing to submit bank guarantee from a nationalised bank.

With the two projects completed, the national highway number 5 (NH5) will have 160 km of continuous four lanes on the Calcutta-Chennai corridor. The entire corridor is 1,751 km in length and cover sections of NH5, NH6 and NH 60.

Bids for these three contracts were opened in November and the construction is scheduled to begin in January, 2001. The construction works are likely to be over by 2003, which is also the deadline for the entire Golden Quadrilateral.

The Quadrilateral comprises 5,952 km connecting Delhi, Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai. Work on 588 km of the high density metro corridors has already been completed and another 911 km is under implementation. Projects under implementation are scheduled for completion by 2002 and are funded by the Asian Development Bank, Japan Bank for International Cooperation (formerly OECF) and NHAI.

Project preparation for the entire Golden Quadrilateral has been awarded. NHAI is scheduled to allot work contracts for about 3,000 km during the current year and another 1,500 km during the next fiscal year.