Bids for rail link to int’l airport opened

Bids for rail link to int’l airport opened
S Praveen Dhaneshkar, Sep 30, Bangalore:

In what could be good news to public transport related infrastructure in the City, the State government on Wednesday opened the bids for the Rs 5,767 crore high speed rail link (HSRL) project to Devanahalli, to speed up the process of implementing the project.


Sources in the infrastructure development department (IDD) told Deccan Herald on Wednesday, that bids for the request for qualification (RFQ) were opened. “The response to the bids have been very good, considering the time taken for the project to reach its present stage. Five major consortia have now been selected for financial bids, that will be evaluated in 30 days,” said IDD sources.

With this, the Bangalore Airport Rail Link Limited (BARL) will issue the letter of award (LOA) to the selected concessionaire after the process of evaluation in March 2010. Construction of the HSRL to the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) is then expected to begin in May 2010.

The five selected consortia in the fray are Reliance, Larsen and Toubro, Siemens/Tata Pioneer Infratech, Lanco and ITD-ITD.CEM. The project will also have a contribution of Rs 1,000 crore from the Government of India through a viability gap funding (VGF) route. It may be recalled that the HSRL project was first cleared by the State cabinet in December 2007 and again in February 2009 at the Belgaum session of the legislature.

Mono rail
Another project that has moved forward is the mono rail system for the City under the CTTP (Comprehensive Traffic and Transportation Plan), for which the BARL is a special purpose vehicle (SPV).

An action plan to this effect has been presented to members of the Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure Development (ABIDe). The project now awaits its clearance. To be implemented on a public private partnership (PPP) basis on the identified corridors, the BARL has already issued the letter of intent (LOI) and will appoint consultants by October 19. “The detailed project report (DPR) will then be prepared by January 31, 2010, followed by calling of global tenders through the RFQ and request for proposal (RFP). We hope to have the concessionaire in place in October 2010,” informed IDD sources.
At present, a proposal from Scomi Geodesic has been received by the government under the Swiss Challenge approach and presented to the Bangalore Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA). “This proposal will be put to tenders after ABIDe approval,” added IDD sources.