India's engineering giant Larsen & Toubro and Malaysian firm Scomi Engineering have jointly bagged country's first monorail project to come up in the financial city of Mumbai at a contract of Rs 2,460 crore ($523 million).

The 19.54 km project to link Bombay's west side of the city to its north-east is expected to ease congestion in the highly crowded Jacob Circle, Wadala and Chembur areas.

The Mumbai monorail project is likely to be followed by similar transportation systems in other major Indian cities like New Delhi and Bangalore.

The join contract was awarded to Scomi-L&T by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority Monorail system. The Malaysian-Indian company beat the Reliance-Hitachi consortium's bid.

L&T in association with Malaysia-based Scomi Engineering would construct the monorail in 30 months, while, the Malaysian firm Scomi will hold a 45 per cent stake in the project while, the majority 55 per cent would be with L&T.

The CEO of the Malaysian firm Shah Hakim Zain said his company had also submitted bids for monorail projects in Bangalore, Pune, New Delhi and Patna.

Monorail is an urban transport system where the cars move on a single beam in an elevated corridor.

The project would be executed on a 'fast-track' basis as it requires a small foot print and minimal demolition of buildings, L&T said.

The line will serve 18 stations with a central depot facility for operational control and train maintenance. Under the contract 15 trains consisting of four air-conditioned cars in each set would operate in the system.