Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has emerged as the lowest bidder for the 3.81 km long underground tunnel that will link Eastern Freeway to Coastal Road on Marine Drive. The project will decongest stretches of road like Crawford market junction, GPO Junction and even CSMT junction as this road will be like a bypass for traffic headed to and fro from Marine Driv.

An MMRDA official said, “Even though L&T has emerged as the lowest bidder, the decision to award the contract will be taken after scrutiny of the bid documents.”

L&T has quoted a sum of Rs 7,765 crore, which is almost Rs 1,000 crore more than the estimated cost. Once built, this will be the longest underground road tunnel within the island city. The 3+3 lane will take 4 years to complete. There will be two-lane one-way ramps to connect the Eastern Freeway and two-lane one-way tunnels to connect to Coastal Road and Marine Drive. The underground tunnel, whose alignment is planned below SVP road, will criss-cross above or below the Metro 3 (Colaba-Bandra-Seepz) corridor between Grant Road and Girgaum Metro station. It is expected to reduce the travel time between these two destinations to 8 to 10 minutes as against the existing time of 30 to 40 minutes via Fort and Marine Drive.

Earlier, MMRDA had planned for an elevated corridor. The viaduct was to come up at a height of 5.5 m at Girgaum but many idols are of the same height or taller, when they are transported by truck, the height would be invariably more than the viaduct.