Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd. (MEIL) were declared as the lowest bidders for one package each of 11.84 km Thane – Borivali twin tunnel project’s construction in Mumbai.
This road project by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) will feature 2 x 10.8 km road tunnels under Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) and a combined 1 km of approach roads on both ends.
The tunnels with 3 lanes each will be built using 4 mega tunnel boring machines (TBMs) at a maximum depth of 23m below the surface and connect Magathane’s Ekta Nagar in Borivali and Tikuji-Ni-Wadi at Manpada in Thane.
MMRDA had invited tenders for its civil construction under 2 civil packages in December 2022 with unknown estimates and a 4 year completion deadline. The project’s total estimated cost is Rs. 13,200 crore.
Technical bids were opened earlier this month to reveal L&T and MEIL as the only 2 bidders. L&T’s technical bid for Package 1 was disqualified as they didn’t submit additional documents to support qualification. Subsequently they requested MMRDA to only consider them for Package 2’s tender.
The project aims to drastically reduce the driving time between both spots from 1-2 hours (depending on day/time) to just about 15 minutes. MMRDA has received wildlife clearance from the National Board for Wildlife, while environmental clearance for diverting 57.02 hectares of forest area is still pending.
Besides this tunnel project,Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s 12.20 km Goregaon-Mulund Link Road which will feature 6.3 km twin tunnels to form another east-west link beneath SGNP, just south of the Thane – Borivali tunnels. The bid submission date was recently rescheduled to May 3.