Afcons Wins Ahmedabad Railway Station Redevelopment Project

Afcons Infrastructure was today declared as the lowest bidder among 3 firms to redevelop Ahmedabad Junction Railway Station (ADI) in Gujarat.

Like Delhi’s project, the Indian Railways’ budgeted estimate for this project in Ahmedabad’s Kalupur neighborhood remains unconfirmed to me, so that will affect the next steps in the process (more details below).

This project by India’s Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA) involves completely transforming the existing Indian Railway facility into a modern facility with commercial, residential & retail developments that integrates local heritage monuments strewn in the vicinity, such as Brick Minar and Jhulta Minar.

The new station building’s design has inspired by Modhera Sun Temple, and the station premises will include an open space Amphitheatre inspired by Adalaj Stepwell.

RLDA had invited tenders for the project in October 2022 with a 3 year completion deadline. Technical bids were opened on March 13 to reveal 3 bidders.

Financial Bid Values

Firm	Bid (Rs. Crore)
Afcons Infrastructure	5355
NCC	5694
Larsen & Toubro (L&T)	5770

Brief Scope: Re-development of Ahmedabad Railway Station and construction of associated infrastructure on Engineering Procurement & Construction (EPC) Mode

On the eastern end of the station, IRCON – DRA JV is currently constructing 508 km Mumbai – Ahmedabad Bullet Train‘s station box as part of 18.12 km Package C7, which can be seen in the below rendering with a blue colored PEB roof.

As shared at the top of my post, the project’s budgeted estimate remains unconfirmed to me. I’ve heard figures of Rs. 3000 crore and Rs. 5,000 crore floating within the construction industry’s circles.

If it’s Rs. 5,000 crore, then Afcons will be invited for negotiations and a contract should be awarded in the coming months.

If it’s Rs. 3000 crore, then that makes Afcons’s bid a striking 78.5% higher than the estimate. Negotiations will not be sufficient enough to help with contract finalization. RLDA will need to either reduce the scope or get cabinet approval for a revised project cost, which likely will lead to another round of tendering.

The only other station redevelopment project I’m closely tracking is for Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. That project received 4 bids from Ahluwalia, Afcons, L&T & NCC, so stay tuned to see who wins that.

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– TMRG