Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw flagged off indigenously designed and manufactured equipment on Thursday to speed up the construction of a viaduct for the Mumbai Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) corridor, which has been hampered by the coronavirus pandemic and land acquisition issues.
Officials said Larsen & Toubro (L&T) in Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, designed and manufactured the full span launching equipment, which includes a Straddle Carrier and Girder Transporter with a capacity of 1,100 mt.
Vaishnaw told the audience via video conference that India has now joined a select group of countries that have been designing and manufacturing such equipment, including Italy, Norway, Korea, and China.
For the project, L&T has partnered with 55 Micro-Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
In Gujarat, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Maharashtra, more than 97% of the land for the project has been acquired, with the remaining 30% in Maharashtra.
The Mumbai Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail project, according to Vaishnaw, will create more than 90,000 jobs in the region, including 51,000 jobs for technicians, skilled and unskilled workers.
Even though precast girders with full span lengths will be erected in a single piece for a double-track viaduct, the technology will also speed up the launching of girders.
This system is used all over the world because it is faster than the segment-by-segment launching method, which is commonly used to build viaducts for metro systems.
For the construction of 325 km of viaduct superstructures between Vapi and Ahmedabad in Gujarat, twenty of this launching equipment will be required.
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