The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has awarded the fourlaning of the National Highway-66 bypass stretch from Mukkola to Karode in the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border to L&T Construction, the construction arm of engineering major Larsen & Toubro Limited.
Similar to the ongoing development of the Kazhakuttam-Mukkola stretch, the project will be undertaken in engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) mode under the third phase of the National Highways Development Project.
Reliable sources said that the NHAI had entered into an agreement with L&T Construction, which had quoted the lowest bid price of Rs.497 crore, in New Delhi on May 3. Besides the eventual winner, the other bidders for the project included KNR Constructions, which is undertaking the construction of the first reach; Hindustan Construction Company; Delma-Sreedhanya JV; Sadbhav Engineering Limited; and BSCPL Infrastructure Limited.
The total cost of civil construction work had initially been estimated at Rs.804.97 crore.
The scope of the project includes the maintenance of the developed stretch, 16.5 km, during the Defect Liability Period, which has been set at four years. The duration of the project will be two years.
Features
The proposed features of the road include 4-m wide central median, paved shoulders of 1.5 m in non-built-up locations and 2 m in built-up locations, earthen shoulders of 2 m, and reinforced cement concrete (RCC) drains of 1 m on either side of the developed stretch that will have Right of Way (RoW) of 45 m.
The road will be developed as a cement concrete pavement which will have a thickness of 105 cm. While the top layer of paving quality concrete (PQC) will have a thickness of 25 cm, the dry lean concrete (DLC) will be around 15 cm thick. These layers will be formed over the granular sub-base and the sub-grade—the foundation of the road.
The process of land acquisition for the second reach is nearing completion. As many as 1,769 land owners have ceded land for the project. The required land is being acquired at a cost of around Rs.460 crore, sources said.
