The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has received three bids for the construction of two underground tunnels under its Goregaon Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project. The bids come eight months after the civic body floated the tender.
The BMC first floated the tender in October 2022. The deadline for the firms to submit their bids was delayed several times. The officials have said that the three firms which have submitted their bids are NCC Limited, Larsen and Toubro and Afcons Infrastructure Limited, The Indian Express reported. Additional Municipal Commissioner (Projects) P Velrasu has said the final bidder who will receive the work order will be finalised by July end. He said at present the bids by the three firms are being evaluated. Velrasu also said the bidders had requested for extending the deadline earlier. Besides this, factors linked to environmental clearances and permissions from the forest department also caused a delay.
New environment clearance mandates the presence of pipelines beneath the tunnels for water flow. This was not required earlier. The rework that needed to be done because of these conditions also led to a delay.
More about Mumbai’s underground twin tunnels
The twin tunnels have been pegged at a price of Rs 6,300 crore while the GMLR project in total is estimated to cost Rs 8,550 crore. With a diameter of 13 metres, the tunnels will be 4.7-kilometre long. They will be passing under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) and their depth would vary between 20-160 metres. They will be made using a Tunnel Boring Machine and will have an advanced ventilation and lighting system with electric surveillance.
The GMLR project is to be divided into four phases and currently the first and second phases are going on. These include construction of flyovers, traffic interchanges, widening of roads and creating traffic interchanges. The tunnels will be constructed in the third phase. The work on the twin tunnels could start by 2023 end.