Tender for undersea tunnel yet to be floated

New Delhi: The National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) is yet to float the tenders for the undersea tunnel for Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet train project. Seven Indian companies have shown interest for the construction of the underground station at BKC, Mumbai in the pre-bidding stage, officials said on Monday.

A NHSRCL official told IANS, "The tenders for the undersea tunnel is yet to be floated."The bullet train project will have a 21-km long underground corridor from BKC to Kalyan Shilphata in the state of Maharashtra, of which around 7 km will be underground corridor under the Thane creek. Of this, a 1.8 km long section will be developed under the seabed, while the remaining part of the stretch is to be built under the mangrove's marshland on either side of the creek.

The official said that for the tunneling work, which includes testing as well as commissioning for double-line high speed railway for the project using tunnel boring machine (TBM) and a new Austrian tunneling method (NATM) is yet to be floated.A geo-technical investigation of the undersea tunnel area was carried out earlier by a team of engineers from NHSRCL, RITES and Japan's Kawasaki Geological Engineering firm.