5 civil construction firms (2 in a consortium) have submitted bids for underground Package UG-06/RT-01 of Chennai Metro’s 44.6 km Line-5 after Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. (CMRL) opened technical bids on wednesday.
This roughly 5.8 km civil package of Chennai Metro’s Phase 2 project consists of twin tunnels and 5 underground stations between Kolathur and Nathamuni on the mostly elevated Line-5 which will connect Madhavaram and Sholinganallur through 45 stations.
This is a contract retender. In the original round, L&T was the only bidder in August 2021 and was naturally declared as the lowest bidder in November 2021. Their bid was substantially higher than CMRL’s estimate, which led to the cancelation of that tender and re-invitation of bids in December 2021.
In this round, CMRL has set the contract’s estimated value at Rs. 1580 crore and would like work to be completed within a 1395 day (3.8 year) deadline.
Bidders
- DRA Infracon – Soma JV
- Hindustan Construction Company – Kalpataru JV
- Larsen & Toubro (L&T)
- J Kumar Infraprojects (JKIL)
- Tata Projects (TPL)
Brief Scope: Construction of underground stations at Kolathur, Srinivasa Nagar, Villivakam Sub-urban Station, Villivakam bus-terminus and Nathamuni with entry / exit, ventilation shafts, plumbing, earthmat, architectural finishes including signages etc. including twin bored tunnels from Kolathur retrieval shaft to Nathamuni launching shaft and ramps with U – section in corridor-5 of CMRL phase-II project
The bids have now been sent for technical bid evaluation which can take a couple months to complete. When that is done, the financial bids of the technically qualified bidders will be opened to reveal who’s the lowest bidder and most likely contractor.
This last major civil contract of Phase 2 project will be financed by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and CMRL requires a minimum of 4 tunnel boring machines (TBMs) to be deployed for tunneling.