Three engineering consultancies selected for Chennai Metro Rail

28 January 2020 Consultancy.in

As the Chennai Metro Rail (CMR) project moves into its second phase, Chennai Metro Rail (CMRL) has brought on board three engineering consultancies to manage its implementation. Nippon Koei India, Aarvee Associates, Architects, Engineers & Consultants and Balaji Road Systems have all joined the project.

The three engineering consulting firms will manage the first section of phase two, working under a contract that is worth nearly Rs. 350 crore. As part of the mandate, the trio will advise on the construction of two CMR corridors: Corridor 3 running from Madhavaram to Sholinganallur and corridor 5 running from Madhavaram to Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus.

Nearly 52km will be covered under the latest phase of construction, which marks nearly half of the total phase two coverage that amounts to 119km. More than Rs.20,000 crore for the project has come from the Japan International Cooperation Agency, with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) also involved.

So far, the AIIB has sanctioned just over Rs 2,300 crore for the CMR. International investment is flooding in at a time when the need for infrastructure development has been placed in sharp focus in India, opening up channels of investment. The scenario marks a welcome change from a few years ago, when a lack of infrastructure development was driving domestic infrastructure consultancies to look abroad for growth.

Three engineering consultancies selected for Chennai Metro Rail

The three consultancies working on this project are among the leading players in the field. Nippon Koei is a Japan-based global infrastructure consultancy that has been operational for more than 70 year, and now works on projects in 160 countries across the globe.

The firm manages more than 5,500 projects annually, with a specific focus on the engineering and maintenance of social infrastructure. Aarvee Associates is a civil engineering firm based in Hyderabad, specialising in multi-disciplinary engineering consulting. The firm’s operations stretch across various major Indian cities, including New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneshwar and Kolkata.

Aarvee also has an Australian subsidiary based in Brisbane, and a branch in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The railways expertise for the project will be supplied by Balaji Railroad Systems, a specialised firm that operates across the globe with a team of transport planners, mechanical engineers and track engineers, among others.

Commenting on the role being played by the trio of consulting firms, a CMR official said that they would “look into everything from calling for tenders for various work to build these two stretches, to monitoring how they are being executed by contractors.”