The Hindu Business Line : Bengal evaluating bids from global majors for rapid transit system

THE West Bengal Government, in a major bid to revamp the city's public transportation system, is now seriously examining proposals for a rapid transit system, and has already floated an international tender seeking Expression of Interest (EoI) for this purpose.

Making this announcement at the inaugural session of the 103rd AGM of the Merchants Chamber of Commerce (MCC) here on Wednesday, the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, said a consultants' group has already been set up to evaluate the bids from interested parties, both domestic and international. He informed that some important companies have already shown interest.

Mr Bhattacharjee clarified that funds for the city's transportation purpose are actually being discussed with the Department for International Aid (DFID), UK, and only suggestions for improvements to the system are being sought from the World Bank.

Further enquiries from informed State transport department sources reveal that the bids have already come in from as many as 10 companies, and have been opened and subjected to evaluation. Sources said the evaluation job has been entrusted to CES (Construction Engineering Services) Group of Delhi.

It may be recalled that as many as four groups had made detailed presentations before the CM sometime in August this year for a MRTS (Mass Rapid Transit System)-LRTS (Light Rail Transport System) project. The four were Sahara-Interglobe, Itochu of Japan, Srei-Denmark consortium (Ruf International) and a private railway organisation in the UK. It is learnt that only after viewing the presentations that the transport department had decided to call for an international tender to select parties who may be able to take up the job.

Sources said among the 10 parties who have bid for the MRTS/LRTS project, said to cost around Rs 3,500 crore, are companies such as BHEL, Punj Lloyd, KLRS (a UK company), Srei-Denmark, ILFS-Tantia consortium, L&T, Konkan Railway and Gammon India. Interestingly, according to sources, both Sahara and Itochu, who had showed interest in the project, did not put in a bid.

On the likely model to be adopted, sources said both the dual mode system of rail-road and train-tram, on elevated tracks, is getting a close look.

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