The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) said that it has invited bids for the preparatory works for the subsequent construction of the Sabarmati maintenance depot for the 508 km long Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed rail (MAHSR) corridor.

NHSRCL spokesperson Sushma Gaur said that Sabarmati maintenance depot will be the largest depot among three depots planned for MAHSR corridor.

She said, other depots will be at Surat in Gujarat and Thane in Maharashtra.

She said that this tender includes road works, sewage and drainage works, earth work, construction of reservoirs for storage of rooftop rain water and storm water, underground storage tanks, sheds for parking of the general inspection train (GIT) and inspection cars for track and other civil works at the site marked for the Sabarmati depot.

She further said that the Sabarmati depot will cover an area of approximately 84 hectare and will be utilized for inspection, maintenance, cleaning and parking of MAHSR trainsets.

The trainset washing facilities shall also be located in the depot.

On Monday, the NHSRCL had said that Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has emerged as the lowest bidder for constructing the 237 km length of the Bullet Train Project under the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed rail corridor.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then Japan's Premier Shinzo Abe had 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 ambitious project was December 2023. The bullet trains are expected to run at 350 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..