The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has received three bids for the construction of two underground tunnels as part of the Goregaon Mulund Link Road (GMLR) project.
The 12.2 km-long GMLR, will connect Goregaon in the western suburbs with Mulund in the eastern suburbs through a serious of arterial roads, underground tunnels and bridges.
Afcons Infrastructure, Larsen & Toubro, NCC – J Kumar Infraprojects JV are the three firms which have submitted their bids for constructing 4.7 km twin tunnels of the GMLR project.
It was in October 2022, that the BMC had floated tenders for construction of twin tunnels. But owing to requests from bidders, the submission deadline had to be extended multiple times.
“There were many requests from potential bidders to extend the deadline. Also, factors pertaining to forest department’s permission and receiving environmental clearances also mandated certain parameters for which we had to rework on the plan that eventually led to the delay,” P Velrasu, Additional Municipal Commissioner (Projects) told Indian Express.
The bids will now undergo technical evaluation and the bidder who will get the work order will be finalised by end of July.
“At present we are evaluating the bids that have been submitted by these three firms and the firm which will get the work order will be finalised by end of this month,” Velrasu told Express.
Twin Tunnels
As part of the futuristic GMLR project, the BMC has envisaged a twin tunnel below Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP), the only national park in the world to be located within a metropolitan area.
The 4.7 km long tunnel will start at Film City at Goregaon and exit at Khindipada at Mulund. The tunnel with a diameter of around 13 metre, will have a depth varying between 20 and 160 metre, depending on the surrounding topography.
The tunneling works for the project will be done using the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) and the tunnel will be equipped with advanced ventilation, lighting systems, and electric surveillance.
GMLR Project
The Goregaon Mulund Link Road project envisages creating an east-west corridor for traffic movement, connecting Western Express Highway (WEH) at Goregaon and Eastern Express Highway (EEH) at Mulund.
Currently, there is no direct connectivity between these areas, and commuters have to take a detour from either Ghodbunder Road in Thane or Powai. Both these roads remain gridlocked during peak hours.
The entire project has been divided into four phases and at present the first and second phase is on, which includes construction of flyovers, traffic interchanges, widening of existing roads and creating traffic interchanges.
The work on the twin tunnels, being built under the third phase, may start before end of this year. The period for construction of the twin tunnels is estimated to be around four years as it involves complex works, said a BMC official.
The cost of the twin tunnels is estimated at Rs 6,300 crore, while the overall project cost exceeds Rs 8,550 crore.
Thane-Borivali Tunnel Project
Notably, this will be the second tunnel project under SGNP after the 11.84 km Thane-Borivali twin tunnel project further up north.
The Thane-Borivali tunnel project is also a part of the Goregaon Mulund Link Road project and includes 10.8 km of twin tunnels and another km of approach roads on both ends (Thane and Borivali).
Earlier in May 2023, Hyderabad-based Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd (MEIL) bagged two separate packages to build the ambitious Thane-Borivali twin tunnel project for a total bid of Rs 14,400 crore.
This includes the construction of 5.75 km tunnel from the Borivali side in Package 1 and 6.09 km tunnel from the Thane side in Package 2.