Gammon India has approached the Madras High Court on Wednesday seeking a stay on the termination of its contract by Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL).
Gammon India bagged a contract worth Rs. 1,947 crore with Russian firm Mosmetrostroy in 2011 to design and construct seven underground stations, including the ones at Saidapet, Government Estate, LIC and Gemini.
When the case came up for hearing on Wednesday before Justice S.Vimala, she heard the pleas of Gammon India and the CMRL and asked them to resolve the issue amicably. Discussions between the two companies were for the last few days.
Soon after the Russian firm abandoned the project owing to severe financial crunch, Gammon India brought representatives from Seli – an Italian company for tunnelling work a fortnight ago, sources said.
Gammon India’s contract was terminated on July 13, sources added. Further hearing on the issue is posted on Monday. While CMRL officials claimed that the contract was terminated owing to tardy progress of work, sources at Gammon India said the delay was owing to the difficulty to bore through rocky surfaces on Anna Salai.
“The CMRL had not indicated that it would be rocky on Anna Salai stretch. This certainly makes it more difficult to bore through and takes a lot of time as well. We had to keep changing the cutter head of the tunnel boring machine (TBM) and this added to the expenses,” a source said.
He added that Italian representatives are here for the last 15 days waiting to see if they can take over the tunnelling work abandoned by Mosmetrostroy. After Mosmetrostroy left the project, the CMRL asked Afcons Infrastructure Limited to take over the tunnelling work from Saidapet to Gemini as a temporary arrangement.
Published - July 18, 2015 03:09 am IST
