Mumbai: Larsen and Toubro (L&T), Afcons Infrastructure, Ahluwalia Contracts and Nagarjuna Construction Company (NCC) are in the race for the re-development of the iconic railway station of the city. Bids for the Rs 1,800 crore Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminal (CSMT) re-development project have been submitted for the redevelopment of the station.
Confirming the development, a senior official of the central railway said the tender will be open soon. Asked about the targeted date of completion of the project, the official said, “It will take around four years as CSMT is one of the busiest railway stations in the county,” he said.
CSMT is one of the oldest railway stations in the country and has 18 platforms, of which seven are for suburban services and the rest for long-distance train operations. As per railway officials, the current daily average footfall is nearly 11lakh. Over 1,500 trains start\ end at CSMT daily, including around 45 pairs of long-distance trains connecting the northern, eastern and southern parts of the country.
The redevelopment of the CSMT, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is planned with a view to decongesting the southern heritage node of the terminus, augmentation of facilities, better multi-modal integration and conserving and restoring the world-famous iconic structure to its past glory.
Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) is executing the redevelopment of the heritage property. Earlier, the redevelopment was assigned to the now-defunct Indian Railway Station Development Corporation (RSDC) but RLDA was later made the project implementation authority. The project will be carried out on an EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) model after Railways decided not to pursue the previous PPP- DBFOT (Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer) model.
