MMRC floats bids for escalators

The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) has taken another step towards implementing the much-delayed 33.5-km long Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro-3 corridor. It has floated bids for appointing contractors for the construction of escalators and elevators inside the 26 planned underground metro stations.

The construction of elevators and escalators has been divided into different packages and the bidders will have around two months to submit their proposals.

Though the stations will have escalators, the MMRC also has plans to construct staircases at all the stations to avoid inconvenience at any given point of time. This may occur in case the escalators stop functioning or when there is a power failure, or in times of emergency.

Commenting on the matter, an MMRC official said, “Any kind of work pertaining to the stations of Metro-3 will be according to the newly drafted civil designs in order to meet the target of decreasing the overall cost of the project.”

The MMRC had decided to cut short the expenditure on the civil designs after the financial bids for construction of civil work had gone up from the estimated cost of Rs 10,188 crore to Rs 15,000 crore.

Before this, the MMRC had also floated bids for construction of tunnel ventilation and station air-conditioning for which companies like Bluestar Limited, Voltas Limited and Tata Projects responded and the final bid for the same are to be opened on May 27, 2016.

The work on the project has missed deadlines due to various reasons like protests from environmentalists over construction of metro depot at Aarey Colony and the approval from the JICA, which is funding 57 per cent of the total cost of the project. The MMRC got JICA’s approval last month.