Tenders called for construction of South Coast Railway office in Vizag

Establishment of South Coast Railway Zone in Visakhapatnam progresses with e-tenders for GM office complex construction.

The long-pending proposal for establishment of the South Coast Railway (SCoR) Zone, with headquarters in Visakhapatnam, is likely to materialise soon.

The East Coast Railway (ECoR) headquarters in Bhubaneswar has invited e-tenders for construction of the General Manager’s office complex and other associated works in Visakhapatnam.

The closing date for the tenders is December 27, 2024. The pre-bid conference will be held at 11 a.m. on December 2, 2024, and bidding will start on December 13, 2024.

The GM’s office complex will have 12 floors, including two basement floors, ground floor and nine floors, which will be constructed at an estimated cost of ₹149.16 crore.

Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw posted the tender notice on ‘X’ on Sunday morning. On November 19, the Railway Board said that the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the South Coast Railway ‘is under review’ in response to a query from K. Eswar, under the RTI Act. It was mentioned in the RTI reply that 52.2 acres of land at Mudasarlova in the city was handed over to the Railways by the State government. The RTI reply also mentioned that presently, no time frame has been fixed for inauguration of the zone in response to another query.

The tender notice seems to have put speculation at rest.

The announcement of the South Coast Railway (SCoR) zone, with Visakhapatnam as the headquarters, was made by then Railway Minister Piyush Goyal before the general elections in February 2019.