NHSRCL Invites Survey Bids for 2365 KM of High Speed Rail Lines
India’s National High-Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) on Friday invited bids for conducting a ridership (traffic) study and carrying out survey work to develop Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) for 2365 km of new High-Speed Rail lines.
Both tender documents became available to download today (Saturday) at 10 and 11 am, and none of the basic notices specify the terminals or route of the new corridors. Update: Routes are listed at the bottom of the post.
NHSRCL/CO/CA/TRAFFIC/2020/40
Scope: Carrying out Ridership Study (Traffic Study) for DPR of Various HSR Corridors (Approx. 2365 kms long)
- Period of Work: 180 days
- Bid Submission End Date: 04-Jan-2021 03:00 PM
- Bid Opening Date: 05-Jan-2021 03:00 PM
NHSRCL/CO/CA/DATA/2020/39
Scope: Data Collection and Associated Survey Work for DPR of Various HSR Corridors (Approx. 2365 kms long)
- Period of Work: 180 days
- Bid Submission End Date: 29-Dec-2020 03:00 PM
- Bid Opening Date: 30-Dec-2020 03:00 PM
The 508 km Mumbai – Ahmedabad Bullet Train project is currently the only high-speed rail line in the civil construction tendering stage, with Larsen & Toubro gearing up to start construction work soon.
Out of the six new high speed rail corridors planned by the Government of India in 2019, tender notices for various pre-construction activities have been published for 5 lines and are pending for the Chennai – Mysore line.
More specifically, individual traffic study and data collection bids have been invited for 3 lines and are pending for another 3 – see table below.
Here’s a list of the winners (or the current status) for these 2 specific pre-construction activities:
| Line | Traffic Study | Data Collection / Survey Work |
| Delhi – Varanasi (865 km) | Bid Notice Pending | Ceinsys Tech |
| Delhi – Ahmedabad (886 km) | T&T Consultants | Ceinsys Tech |
| Mumbai – Nagpur (741 km) | DIMMTS | Satra |
| Delhi – Amritsar (465 km) | Bid Notice Pending | Bid Notice Pending |
| Mumbai – Hyderabad (767 km) | Bid Notice Pending | Bid Notice Pending |
| Chennai – Mysore (450 km) | Bid Notice Pending | Bid Notice Pending |
Perhaps the traffic study and survey work for the Delhi – Amritsar, Mumbai – Hyderabad and Chennai – Mysore lines have been clubbed together into one big package? The numbers don’t quite add up though, so perhaps the 2365 km figure represents additional new lines outside of the six new corridors?
NHSRCL’s Twitter handle is quite active in sharing tender notices, so maybe we’ll get to hear something on it later today or in the coming week.
Update: Sham in the comments section points out that those 3 lines have indeed been clubbed together along with an additional 7th new 760 km Varanasi – Howrah high speed rail line (eastern extension of the Delhi – Varanasi line).
For more updates, check out the High Speed Rail section of The Metro Rail Guy!
– TMRG
The HSR lines should be known as Shinkansen. So it will sound good to hear. These are name of HSR rail lines (my personal opinion) :-
1) MAHSR:- Golden Shinkansen
2) DAHSR:- Thar Shinkansen
3) Delhi-Howrah HSR:- Howrah Shinkansen
4) Mumbai-Hyderabad HSR:- Deccan Shinkansen.
5) Chennai-Mysore HSR:- Mysore Shinkansen
There’s a strong possibility that K-Rail Silver Line can be extend till mangalore and CMHSR can extend till mangalore and merge with each other and Silver Line can be renamed as Malabar Shinkansen.
Note:- There are my personal opinion and most of you might not agree with me.
TMRG, I’ve heard that Govt. Have instruct companies to develop Full Span Launching Machine, as this method is only available in China. Do you think it will affect the deadline of MAHSR, hence it will take time to develop our own Full Span Launching Method?
We are manufacturing of variable type of formwork, Longline Mould, Shortline Mould etc. So full span Mould is not critical for us. More details please visit our website – http://www.winsteel.in
Shinkansen is a Japanese name. We need an Indian name.
TMRG – check page 171 of the traffic study tender. The corridors are:
1) Mumbai-Hyderabad High Speed Rail Corridor 711 km (Approx.);
2) Delhi-Amritsar High Speed Rail Corridor 459 kms (Approx.);
3) Chennai-Mysore High Speed Rail Corridor 435 kms (Approx.);
4) Varanasi-Howrah High Speed Rail Corridor 760 kms (Approx.);
Total = 2365 kms (Approx.).
Same is also mentioned on the Data collection tender on page-165.
Cool – thanks for digging that out! Have added an update at the bottom.
An indian alternative for shinkansen?
Would sound weird, to be honest
I think Shri Ram Bhagwan Express will be apt
Clevin – the machinery L&T will use will depend on if there are any stipulations in the contract. If no stipulations, then the news about developing an indigenous launcher would be considered hearsay. If stipulations are there, I don’t expect them to dictate use of 100% indigenous machinery. There’s no time for that and it would definitely affect the deadline.
The govt to govt deal for high speed rail was only for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route, not others.
So, are we sure that all those routes will have only Japanese Shinkansen rakes? The costs for Shinkansen rakes is almost double when compared with Siemens or Alstom high speed rakes. Don’t think India will buy anymore from them, even if all those routes get built.
Yes, the Shinkansen trainsets are expensive than EuroTrain (European High Speed Trainsets) but Shinkansen have a better safety record and more reliable than EuroTrain. Well personally I strongly recommended Shinkansen technology and strongly oppose EuroTrain tech. bcoz despite the cheap cost, the EuroTrain have a bad reputation on its Safety record. Eg:- Intially Taiwan have chose EuroTrain technology for their High Speed Rail line, but following the frequent accidents of Germany ICE HSR in 2000’s, Taiwan have chose Shinkansen technology. Even they are expensive, I strongly recommend Shinkansen technology. Paise toh aathe rahenge aur jaathe rahenge but life ek baar gayi toh kabi Waapas nahi aayegi. So, moral of the Story is Jaan Hai to Jahaan hai
Clevin, you may have your recommendations but it is GoI & NHSRCL that get to decide. Eurotrain may have had accidents in the past but its safety record has greatly improved now. Most of the casualties currently are due to people crossing tracks or at level crossings.
The Mumbai-Ahmedabad route (just 508km) alone is going to cost some 1.3L crores or $17.3 billion. On this basis, the cost for 4000km would be over 10L crores or some $135 billion. If you convert this to PPP terms, its some half a trillion $.
This is too costly for an exclusive system that may end up having less than 15L ridership, considering that Mumbai-Ahmedabad is expected to start with under 40k & under 2L ridership even after 30 years, as per NHSRCL’s own stats. No country would spend so much for so few.
How will they repay such enormous loans?? Subsidy on fares & operational costs would be too high. India can’t undertake such a huge burden with the already heavy existing ones like farm subsidies, MNREGA etc that can’t be removed easily due to excess population & low income levels, wastage etc..
They will be forced to cut costs & will most likely abandon costly Shinkansen & opt for cheaper sources.
Chennai – Trichy – Madurai -Trivandrum would be nice. I hope something like that is included.
The more viable option is to extend the Chennai-Mysore HSR to Mangalore and Extend the K-Rail Silver line from Kasaragod to Mangalore and merge it, as Silver Line will use Standard Gauge tracks and it is funded by JICA too. It will save more money and more beneficial.
The K-rail silver line isn’t planned to be HSR in true sense; it’s better be called as semi-HSR..
Yeah, Silver line is a Semi HSR but it can be merge with normal HSR to provide better facilities. Eg:- Trains can run at a speed of 320km/h from Mumbai to Mangalore and from Mangalore to Trivandrum it can run at 180-200km/h. This type of practice is regularly take place on Japan’s Mini-Shinkansen lines, where Shinkansen trains run at a speed of 130km/h as the Mini-Shinkansen was not constructed at per the high speed rail standards, they just upgraded the existing rail lines and Regauge the tracks to run Shinkansen trains while in the normal Shinkansen lines trains can run at a speed of 320km/h. The main advantage was that people have don’t need to change trains, it’s just like a Slip train services which often practice in India too. Here’s a link of Mini-Shinkansen to understand properly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-shinkansen
Yes, absolutely perfect..
I think it also includes varanasi-patna-howrah route.
Yes, but for a while Delhi-Varanasi route will be a priority
Interconnecting all the 4 Metros are The best high speed rail networks in India rather than connectng Mumbai with other cities.
Hi TMRG,
NCC is doing a another round of soil testing of patna metro.. How many more days they will require to start their pilling work.. Waiting for long time to see patna metro under-construction but it’s still a dream..I’m eagerly excited to see under-construction patna metro but the days are getting extendedðŸ˜ðŸ˜.
Include north Karnataka with MYSORE train instead of train to chennai.Either to Delhi or chindawara.
They should connect hyd to blr via cities in my karnataka
You have Agra, Surat and Patna in approved category. Will they all move to under construction category by end of 2020? Or is that too ambitious?I think we can take Agra metro to under-construction category before year’s end.??
I think it’s possible for Agra metro to get in the category of under-construction.
We can expect Patna metro civil construction work to begin from Q2:2021..From me I feel that NCC will take another 3-4 months to complete this soil investigation.I have seen that NCC has barricaded some portion only for soil testing.I think those SANY pilling machine was for some other project..This pilling machine is not related to this project (According to me).No more barricades are coming in than on the place of soil investigation place..They will remove the barricade after they finish the taking of soil samples.. Patna metro will be 5-6 month back of Agra metro in mid 2021 (according to me).In Agra they have already started to dig the land for making the foundation.There is virtual inauguration of Agra metro..From Tomorrow they will start their pilling work.
So we can see that
Patna metro: civil construction work to begin before 2020 end that’s impossible..It will begin in Q3:2021
Agra metro:-civil construction work possible and they are going to begin with construction work from tomorrow.. All the machine and equipment for the construction work have been bought.Only the things is left is inauguration.
That SANY machine is confirmed to belong to IB Infra for the metro project. Start of piling work partly has a political angle.
Agra’s going to be moved today. The PM will virtually inaugurate construction for it around 12 noon.
Hey TMRG, Update the bangalore section,
BMRCL has renamed Anjanapura to Silk institute.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/bengaluru-anjanapura-metro-station-to-be-renamed-as-silk-institute-station/articleshow/79516020.cms#:~:text=BENGALURU%3A%20The%20upcoming%20Anjanapura%20Metro,Corporation%20Limited%20(BMRCL)%20sources.
Done!
Good article but map of India is portrayed wrong here…please fix it
Article has some substance and depth to it…would have preferred the map to more accurate
Hi TMRG,
Some crude estimates (just for civil works).
Reference: Mumbai-Ahmedabad Package C4: Length 237.1km; Award Value = Rs. 24985 Crore (Cr). Thus, Unit cost = Rs. 105.4 Cr. per Km.
Estimated cost of civil works:
——————————————————————
DELHI-AMRITSAR
Length: 465Km
Terrain: Flat along North Indian Plains.
Major River Crossing: Ghaggar, Sutlej & Beas
Alignment Cross NH-44 & IR Track, with intermediate diversion/conversion.
Cost civil works = Rs. 49,000 Cr.
——————————————————————
DELHI-VARANASI
Length: 865Km
Terrain: Flat along North Indian Plains.
Major River Crossing: Yamuna, Ganga,
Alignment Cross IR Track / Delhi-Agra-Lucknow – Purvanchal Expressway, with intermediate diversion/conversion.
Cost civil works = Rs. 91,151K Cr.
——————————————————————
Estimation for DELHI-KOLKATA route (1625km) = Rs. 1,71,275 Cr. (the figure is just mind boggling!).
——————————————————————
Can’t estimate the cost for Delhi-Ahmedabad without detailed technical information about the terrain, as the alignment will pass through Aravalis. Likewise, for Mumbai-Nagpur, Mumbai-Pune-Hyderabad & Chennai-Bangalore-Mysore – will pass through the Deccan – wherein the civil works will involve a lot of Tunnels and Bridges.
Let the geotech/geophysical surveys come out first; before any cost estimation be done..
——————————————————————
Upon further including the cost of land-acquisition, signalling, rolling stocks etc. etc. – the overall costs of these HSR projects will run into many “Lakh-Crores”.
Arranging Funds will be equally challenging, as are the technical (Engineering) challenges.
These are going to be one biggest infra project ever attempted by Mankind…
Let’s wait for the so called DPRs (aka ‘FEED with Cost Estimation’ in Engineering Terminology) come out.
Beyond DRPs, the Government need to gauge the economic availability and political tenability…
Love it! Whenever we get to the tendering stage and contracts start getting handed out, I’d love to revisit and see how close you were.
Roger that..