J Kumar Wins Chennai Port-Maduravoyal Expressway’s Packages 1 & 4

After winning 5 km Package 2 earlier in the week, J Kumar Infraprojects was today declared as the lowest bidder to construct 4.262 km Package 1 and 6.038 km Package 4 of the 19.88 km Chennai Port – Maduravoyal Expressway project in Tamil Nadu.

This 4 lane project by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) involves construction of a double-decker access-controlled elevated highway along Cooum River. Its foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2022 under Bharatmala Pariyojana program with an estimated cost of Rs 5,855 crore.

Package 1 connects km 0.342 to km 4.604 (Chennai Port to Thousand Lights East), while Package 4 connects km 14.185 to km 20.223 (Maduravoyal to Koyambedu).

NHAI had invited tenders for their construction in July 2022 with a 910 day construction deadline. Technical bids were opened in April to reveal 5 and 6 bidders for each package respectively.

Package 1 – Bid Values

NHAI’s Estimate: Rs. 1037.77 crore

Firm	Bid (Rs. Crore)
J Kumar Infraprojects	915.00
Afcons Infrastructure Ltd.	1101.69
Tata Projects – SP Singla JV	1111.01
DRA Infracon	1149.00
Transrail Lighting – Evrascon JV	Disqualified

Package 4 – Bid Values

NHAI’s Estimate: Rs. 901.23 crore

Firm	Bid (Rs. Crore)
J Kumar Infraprojects	775.00
Kalpataru – Evrascon JV	814.50
DRA Infracon	855.21
Afcons Infrastructure	982.80
PST Engineering – Indo JV	Disqualified
Eaglecon Heavy Works	Disqualified

J Kumar’s bids were 11.83% and 14.01% below NHAI’s estimates, so contracts should be awarded in the coming weeks without a long financial bid evaluation period.

Per Nitin Gadkari’s recent tweet, “completion of this project is expected to alleviate traffic congestion in Chennai by segregating local traffic movement onto one tier of the Elevated highway. Additionally, it will double the handling capacity of the port, reduce waiting times at the port, and decrease travel time for vehicles bound for the port by an hour.”

Here are a few renders prepared by L&T Infra Engineering shared by Nitin Gadkari:

With this development, financial bids for just 4.485 km Package 3 (Koyambedu – Aminjikarai) are left to be opened, which should happen next week. The project’s information page with a list of all packages and their status can be viewed here: Chennai Port – Maduravoyal Expressway – Information & Status

For more updates, check out the Expressway section or my Home Page! Sign up for free instant email notifications on new posts over here. Like this post? Get early-access to updates and support the site over here.

– TMRG