India’s infrastructure company Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has won contracts to design and build two key systems packages for the Metro Rail Line-1 project. Jointly with Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation, it will build the track, power supply, signalling, telecommunications and platform screen doors for the Dhaka metro line.
L&T said in its announcement that it counts the two contracts among its large projects. By its classification, they fall in the category of work worth more than 50 billion Indian rupees, which is more than Tk 65 billion.
India’s Business Standard reported on October 27 that the company’s transportation business won the two contracts under Line-1 of the Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development Project, Bangladesh’s first underground metro rail project.
Under the contracts, L&T and Sumitomo will design, procure, install, test and commission track along the whole line, the power supply and distribution system, traction substations, the overhead catenary system and related electrical infrastructure. Signalling, telecommunications and platform screen doors are also covered.
Dhaka Metro Rail Line-1, financed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), will create a modern mass transit system about 31 kilometres long. It has two routes: the Airport route from Kamalapur to the airport, and the Purbachal route from Notun Bazar to the Purbachal terminal. The plan includes 19 stations and a depot at Pitalganj.
L&T earlier carried out the integrated railway systems work for Line-6, Bangladesh’s first metro rail corridor, which it has completed. Line-6 is now in commercial operation.
Ramkumar S, senior executive vice president and head of L&T’s transportation infrastructure business, said the experience of completing the electrical and mechanical systems of Dhaka Metro Line-6 on time and to standard would be put to use on Line-1. He said the company has the capacity to work with equipment makers and other stakeholders to integrate and deliver several technical systems, and noted that it recently won work on the Jakarta metro in Indonesia, which is now under way.
He said L&T is well placed to draw on its experience of integrating multiple systems seamlessly through close coordination with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and other stakeholders.
Once the key systems of Line-1 are built and installed, they are expected to play an important part in making the capital’s public transport more modern and effective.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report