New Delhi, Mar 8 (IANS): The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) on Monday said it has once again started the Aerial LiDAR survey for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project to capture the data related to the vertical ground profile.
NHSRCL spokesperson Sushma Gaur said: "The Aerial LiDAR survey for capturing the data related to vertical profile of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail (HSR) corridor, for 88 km between Ahmedabad and Vadodara and 237 km from Vadodara to Vapi, all in Gujarat, started on Monday."
She said that the study will help to set the vertical ground profile along the alignment, which shall be the basis for subsequent design including the pier design along the Mumbai-Ahmedabad HSR corridor.
Gaur added that the aerial survey, with LiDAR equipment and high-resolution camera mounted on Aircraft can cover 200 km alignment in a day.
"The required data is expected to be captured in two flights over 3-4 days," she said.
According to NHSRCL, the aerial LiDAR survey was first used on the same corridor. It has recently carried out the LiDAR survey for other proposed high speed corridors in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the then Japan Premier Shinzo Abe on September 14, 2017 laid the foundation stone for the ambitious Rs 1.08 lakh crore ($17 billion) project.
The initial deadline to complete the project is December 2023.
The bullet trains are expected to run at 320 km per hour covering the 508 km stretch in about two hours. In comparison, trains currently plying on the route take over seven hours to travel the distance, whereas flights take about an hour.
According to the NHSRCL officials, the LiDAR survey is being carried out on the 325 km route for two tender packages C-4 and C-6.
Larsen and Toubro has bagged the C6 package for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high speed rail project, popularly referred to as the bullet train project from the NHSRCL.
Tender package C-6 is the third longest package of the entire project and connects Vadodara with Ahmedabad through one station and a minor depot at Anand-Nadiad.
It involves the design and construction of civil and building works, including testing and commissioning on design build lump sum price basis for a double line high speed railway involving 87.5 km of viaducts and bridges, 25 crossing bridges, a tunnel, 97.50 km of roads, one station, a maintenance depot, 4 sub-maintenance depots, and a host of other associated structures.
The tender was awarded to L&T in November last year.
The L&T has also bagged the C-4 package of Rs 24,985 crore that constitutes 46.66 per cent of the project last year.
The C-4 tender package between Vapi (Zaroli Village on Maharashtra-Gujarat Border) and Vadodara in the state of Gujarat includes four stations namely Vapi, Billimora, Surat and Bharuch, and Surat Depot. The tender was awarded to L&T in December last year.