Tata Awarded Chennai Metro Line 5’s UG06 Tunneling Contract

Per a couple of my tunneling industry connections, Tata Projects Ltd. (TPL) on Monday was awarded a Rs. 1445.98 crore construction contract for 44.6 km Chennai Metro Line-5‘s underground Package UG-06/RT-01.

This roughly 5.8 km package connecting Kolathur – Nathamuni is the final of 19 civil packages of the 116.1 km Chennai Metro Phase 2 project to be awarded by Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. (CMRL).

It consists of twin tunnels and 5 underground stations on the mostly elevated Line-5 which will connect Madhavaram and Sholinganallur through 45 stations.

This is a contract retender for one of the longest delayed packages. In the original round, L&T was the only bidder in August 2021 and was naturally declared as the lowest bidder in November 2021. Their bid was substantially higher than CMRL’s estimate, which led to the cancelation of that tender and re-invitation of bids in December 2021.

In the new round, CMRL re-invited bids with an estimated value at Rs. 1580 crore and completion deadline of 1395 days (3.8 year). Technical bids were opened in May to reveal 5 bidders – Tata Projects (TPL), Larsen & Toubro (L&T), J Kumar Infraprojects (JKIL), HCC – KPTL JV and DRA – Soma JV.

Tata went on to be declared as the lowest bidder, narrowly beating Larsen & Toubro by Rs. 30.02 crore, when financial bids were opened in July 2023 – view financial bid values here.

I’ll add a copy of the Letter of Acceptance (LOA) letter if and when it becomes available.

Contract Value: Rs. 1445,98,03,565.00 (USD 44,644,321.12 + INR 1080,13,97,884.22)

Brief Scope: Construction of Underground Stations at Kolathur Junction, Srinivasa Nagar, Villivakkam Sub-Urban Station (Villivakkam), Villivakkam Busterminus and Nathamuni (Villivakkam MTH Road) with Entry / Exit, Ventilation Shafts, Plumbing, Earthmat, Architectural Finishes & Signages Etc. including Twin Bored Tunnels from Kolathur Junction Retrieval Shaft
to Nathamuni (Villivakkam MTH Road) Launching Shaft and Ramps with U – Section in Corridor-5 of CMRL Phase-II Project

Tata will be required to deploy at least 4 tunnel boring machines (TBMs).

This contract is Tata’s 3rd civil contract in Phase 2 after Line-3’s Package TU01 (9 km twin tunneling between Venugopal Nagar Shaft – Kelly’s) and Package UG-02 (4 stations and 2 partial stations between Ayanavaram – Kelly’s). A complete list of Phase 2’s civil & system packages and their status can be viewed here.

With this exciting development, I expect basic ground work (pre-construction activities) to start in November 2023, actual civil construction in Q1 2024 and tunneling works in Q1 2025.

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– TMRG