This article is part of a daily series of MegaProjects articles. If you want to know more about PPP projects with a considerable size visit our MegaProjects section. You can receive them by email on a daily basis.

The Indian Ministry of Railways, through Konkan Railway, has launched a request for expression of interest (RFEOI) to develop the Chiplun - Karad railway PPP project.

The project involves the construction of 103 km long railway line from Chiplun on the Konkan Railway and Karad on the Pune-Kolhapur Section of the Central Railway. Part of the railway line will run along the river Koyna and will pass through a hilly terrain of Western Ghats for which tunneling work will need to be done. Specifically 16 tunnels totaling 46.22 km and 23 major bridges will be developed.

The preferred bidder will enter into a concession agreement for a period of 30 years, which will include an option to extend it for five more years.

The total project investment is estimated at Rs25 billion (US$380 million). The Konkan Railway will hold 26% of the equity, while the Maharashtra Government has indicated its willingness to share 50% cost of the project.

Interested parties must submit their expression of interest on or before 23 November 2015.

It is expected that the new rail link will enable port connectivity to the hinterland of Maharashtra. The Detailed Project Report has been completed by Konkan Railway. The traffic projection of the line has been done by PriceWaterhouse Coopers (PwC) and the financial viability study has been done by SBI Capital. The major cargo projected in the study report is thermal coal for power generation and thermal coal for cement plants.

We have recently reported on several rail PPP projects globally:

• Lima's metro Line 2 concession - Peru
• Málaga metro concession - Spain
• Guizhou Province railway PPP project - China
• Chicago Union station P3 project - USA