Larsen & Toubro, Tata Projects and Gammon India are among the 22 companies competing for a mega railway contract. Among the companies shortlisted, US companies have stakes in seven companies and French, Russian and Spanish ones have stakes in one each.
The companies, which include the APR-VNR joint venture and C & C Construction, have been shortlisted for constructing the track and track-related works on a 66-km stretch from New Karwandiya to Durgawati of the eastern dedicated freight corridor (DFC).
The Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation (DFCC) of India has pre-qualified the companies in response to applications received on January 16 for the stretch that is part of the 105-km Mughalsarai- Sonnagar section. The project relates to track and related work and their testing and commissioning for the double-track electrified railway line on a design-build-lump sum basis.
The contractor is expected to be selected within two months after the submission of the financial bid, said a senior official.
In January 2007, the project cost for the eastern and western corridors was estimated by RITES at Rs 28,000 crore. This was subsequently revised to about Rs 37,000 crore by Japan International Cooperation Agency in its feasibility report submitted to the ministry of railways in October 2007. After being revised to 2009 price levels, the two corridors are likely to cost about Rs 45,000 crore, resulting in a project completion cost of about Rs 80,000 crore in 2016-2017.
The eastern corridor is scheduled to be funded by a World Bank loan, internal generation and public-private partnerships. Financing for the 725-km section between Ludhiana and Mughalsarai would be undertaken over three phases by the World Bank, through a loan by the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development (IBRD).
The section from Mugalsarai to Sonnagar would be funded directly by the ministry of railways, while the 546-km section from Sonnagar to Dankuni would be financed through a public-private partnership. The first tranche of the IBRD loan, aggregating to $975 million, has already been signed by DFCC and the World Bank.
The 1,190-km Ludhiana-Mughalsarai stretch in the eastern corridor would be financed by the World Bank in three phases - the Khurja to Kanpur stretch (343 km), Kanpur to Mughalsarai (390 km) and Khurja to Ludhiana (397 km). The funding for each of these would be based on the work done in the previous stretch.
“Eighty per cent of the entire alignment of the eastern corridor is parallel to the existing railway track. However, the alignment takes a detour to skirt busy towns/cities and other inhabited areas, wildlife sanctuaries and forest areas,” said a railway official. The major detour alignment on the eastern corridor is at the Gurpa Gujandi Ghat section, Gaya, Allahabad, Kanpur, Aligarh, Meerut and Tundla.
