Ahluwalia Wins Varanasi Airport’s New Terminal Contract

Ahluwalia Contracts (India) Ltd. (ACIL) on Tuesday was declared as the lowest bidder for the civil construction work of a new terminal building at Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

The new terminal building by Airports Authority of India (AAI) will be spread across an area of 75,220 sqm. It will be equipped with 8 aerobridges, 72 check-in counters, 14 security check counters and 6 baggage claim belts. It will have an ultimate design capacity of handling 6 MPPA and be capable of handling 5000 peak hour passengers.

AAI had invited tenders for the terminal’s civil construction contract in December 2023 with a Rs. 995.08 crore estimate and 3 year completion deadline.

Technical bids were opened earlier this month to reveal 9 bidders. Among those, bids submitted by Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirman Nigam Ltd. and Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd. (RVNL) were found technically non-compliant to the tender conditions and were disqualified.

Financial Bid Values

Firm	Bid (Rs. Crore)
Ahluwalia Contracts (India) Ltd.	893.48
NCC Ltd.	963.46
KPC Projects Ltd.	984.99
PSP Projects Ltd.	1030.90
Larsen & Toubro	1068.22
Tata Projects Ltd.	1069.00
Kalpataru Projects India Ltd.	1134.00

AAI’s Brief Scope: Development of Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport, Varanasi. Package-I – Construction of New Terminal Building and Allied works on Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) Model

Ahluwalia’s bid of Rs. 893.48 crore was well below AAI’s Rs. 995.08 crore estimate, so a contract should be awarded in the coming weeks without a long financial evaluation period.

With this development, I expect basic ground work to start in Q2 (April – June) 2024 and full-fledged construction work in Q3 (July – Sept) 2024.

As shared in the past, here’s the masterplan schematic and some design renderings via AAI’s tender documents:

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– TMRG