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Larsen and Toubro Ltd (L&T) has emerged as the L-1 bidder for construction of a four-lane road bridge across the Brahmaputra river.
According to sources in the know, L&T’s bid at ₹3,166 crore, emerged as the lowest bid. The project will cover a stretch of 20 km from Dhubri in Assam to Phulbari in Meghalaya on National Highway 127B, said another source. The project is financed by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The other bidder for the project was SP Singla Construction, a company which is constructing Guwahati-North Guwahati bridge. National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) is the executing agency.
When contacted L&T officials declined to comment. This is one of six bridges proposed for construction by the Government over the Brahmaputra river.
To reduce the travel time
The bridge will be the longest road bridge in India and will connect Assam and Meghalaya and is expected to be completed by 2026-27. Currently, travelling across these states involves taking the Naranarayan bridge, which is 60 km upstream or as an alternative, row across the river in small boats. Also, the project has strategic and socio-economic importance and has the potential to develop economically backward districts in the states of North East. The construction of this bridge project over river Brahmaputra will save the travel distance from 205.3 km to only 19.2 km and reduces travelling time from 5 hours to 20 minutes between Dhubri and Phulbari. This alignment will further augment the transport network for the region by providing the shortest link between the western areas of Meghalaya as well as Barak valley region of Assam and southern states in NE namely Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura and the rest of the country, including the ports of Kolkata.
Other projects
These developments come in the backdrop of L&T bagging two packages of construction projects involving the bullet train project for a combined estimate of nearly ₹32,000 crore. The major one includes a ₹24,985 crore package for constructing the 237.1 km under Package C4 of the 508.17 km Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail Project (MAHSR) corridor. This also needs to be seen in the context of tough macroeconomic conditions for the construction sector as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. In its recent second-quarter earnings, revenue from the infrastructure segment, which has an order book of ₹2.2 lakh crore, fell 20.2 per cent to ₹13,095.7 crore on a yearly basis.
L&T shares were trading at ₹1,042, up close to 1 per cent from the previous day’s close.
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