New Delhi: Tender for the 237-km elevated section of Ahmedabad – Mumbai bullet train project will be opened in the month of August this year and awarded by the year end, said National High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd (NHSRCL) managing director, Achal Khare adding that it will leave 30 months for the completion of the civil work involved.

The expected cost of the civil work of this 237-km section is Rs. 20,000 crore which includes the temporary depot in Surat in case we will have to open this section before August 15, 2022, said Khare.

The corporation will ask the contractor to use full span launching method for laying girders, which will also save time, he further said speaking to Hindustan Times.

The NHSRCL has prepared designs for various structures like stations along the section. They will be shared with the prospective contractor to save eight to nine months that would have otherwise taken for the designs after the award of the tender.

The temporary depot will be built in Gujarat’s Surat to keep trains in case the government decides to open the elevated section of the project first.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe had laid the foundation stone for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project in 2017.

About 35% of the land required for the project has been acquired so far, according to the managing director of NHSRCL.

Railway minister Piyush Goyal in his interview with Hindustan Times had clarified that 2022 was never a deadline for the project; “we will try to do a small portion by that time. The deadline as per the Japanese is December 2023. We have requested them if some portion of it can be fast-tracked.”

DeshGujarat