Mitsui, Marubeni, Sojitz, Fujita and several other international infra giants are in the fray for a R4,000-crore railway contract to build a 320-km stretch between Vadodara and Vaitarna in Maharashtra on the western freight corridor. This will connect Dadri in Uttar Pradesh with JN Port in Maharashtra.
?Several companies have evinced interest in the stretch between Vadodra and Vaitara. The civil construction work would be broken into two slices from Vadodra to Sachin (134 km) and from Sachin to Vaitarna (186 km) but the tender would be done together,? a senior Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (DFCC) official told FE.
The bidding for the project would be done in a couple of months after which the selected names would be sent to Japan International Cooperative Agency (JICA), the funding agency for the 1,500-km western freight corridor, a part of the 3,300-km dedicated freight corridor being constructed at the cost of R95,000 crore.
This would be the third major contract that would be awarded on the western corridor. The DFCC has already shortlisted companies for the R4,000-crore contract of building a 300-km stretch between Palanpur-Vadodra and the bidding will be done soon. ?The date for the bidding for Palanpur-Rewari stretch was June 30, which we have extended due to some technical reasons. But it will be done soon,? the DFCC official added.
The railways has already awarded a contract for the 640-km Rewari-Palanpur stretch to the consortium of Sojitz & Larsen & Toubro. On the 1,800-km eastern freight corridor, from Ludhiana to Dhankuni, the railways has awarded a R3,300-crore contract for a double-track section between Khurja and Kanpur to Tata-Aldesa. The railway will call bids for another stretch on the eastern corridor in which 24 firms have shown interest.