Bangalore and Chennai monorail projects. Scomi Engineering
Date
July 17, 2011
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Today we want to highlight a growing company: the Malaysian global infrastructure provider, Scomi Engineering Bhd. Scomi specialises in monorail projects and has set India as one of its primary aims.Scomi, along with Larsen and Toubro, is currently implementing the Mumbai monorail project. They have been awarded the Sao Paulo (Brazil) monorail project during this year 2011.
Bangalore monorail project
In 2010, the Malaysia-based Scomi Group and city-based Geodesic Private Company jointly proposed to design, build, own, operate and transfer three monorail lines in Bangalore. The proposal is being taken up under the Swiss Challenge approach allowed in the state of Karnataka. The detailed project report (DPR) was finalized last year and the project got clearance from the Agenda for Bangalore Infrastructure Development (ABIDe).
InJune 2011, the government approved the DPR for the first phase of the project, the 16-km long Green Line connecting Majestic to Agara Lake (the 60km monorail project has been divided into four corridors).
Also in June, Scomi Geodesic entered into an agreement with IERS (ITNL Enso Rail System Ltd), a subsidiary company of ILandFS Transportation Network Limited (ITNL) as its financial partner. Under the memorandum of agreement signed last week, IERS would take a 74% equity stake in the 16km project, with the balance to be funded by Scomi and Geodesic.
The government is now preparing final guidelines for inviting global bids. Folowing the legal guidelines of the State of Karnataka for projects under the Swiss Challenge method, the process
The Bidders through a global tender process would be requested to quote counter proposals. The procurement documents shall include (a) bidding document (Combination of RFQ and RFP or separate RFQ and RFP with bid value parameters), (b) Draft Concession agreement and (c) Project Information Memorandum (excluding proprietary information and Details of Financial proposal submitted by the project Proposal Initiator).
Once counter bids have been submitted the Scomi-Geodesic-IERS consortium will have the chance to match the bids if they are more competitive than the one thay have previously submitted:
In conclusion, bid documents are the next step (RFQ and RFP combined). Then Scomi-Geodesic-IERS consortium will have a very good competitive advantage to win the tender to build the monorail line in Bangalore.Proposal Initiator would be given an opportunity to match the competing counter proposal only if the Proposal Initiator's bid value is within 15% of the superior bid value and be selected as the project concessionaire
Chennai monorail project
The plan to build a network of monorail corridors made a comeback in Chennai in June when the State government announced a proposal to build "300-km of monorail in a phased manner. The monorail proposal dates back to February 2006.
The Phase-I of the project will cover 111-km, the Governor Surjit Singh Barnala said.
The government's rationale for preferring the monorail option over the metro rail were the following:
- reduction in construction cost,
- minimal impact on existing buildings,
- aesthetic appeal and suitability in a dense city such as Chennai,
- the gestation time of the project; metro rail construction is seen as time-consuming and it also causes major disruptions to traffic flow for a few years.
Scomi Engineering Bhd submitted a proposal to take part in the proposed monorail project in Chennai this last month of June as part of its strategy of implementing monorail transportation systems in Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai.Update August 1st 2011
Hitachi, in collaboration with Mitsubishi, is also in talks with Tamil Nadu government for providing monorail technology for the Chennai's project. Hitachi has already supplied technology to Taegu monorail in Korea, Chingqing monorail in China, Palm monorail in Dubai and Sentosa monorail in Singapore.
We will see how both projects advance. We will keep you informed at InfraPPP India.
