Mumbai: Around 63 per cent land acquisition has been completed for the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi expressway.
The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) will float tenders once 90 per cent land acquisition is complete.
The entire project has been divided into 16 packages and tendering for the same may start by April 2018.
“Of the 16 packages, we have invited Request For Proposal (RFP) for 14 packages, around 20 pre-qualified bidders have shown interest. They are expected to submit their bids by March 20. However, we can award the contract only after acquiring 90 per cent of the land, so far only 63 per cent has been acquired,” said an official from the MSRDC.
A total of 10,000 hectares of land is required to construct the 700-km long expressway.
Earlier, the authority has adopted land-pooling (acquiring land in exchange of a developed land) method to acquire land for the project.
The method failed to attract farmers and resulted in low response. Now the government is acquiring land through the land acquisition act, where the owner of the land is paid price five times higher than the ready reckoner rate of the property.
