The Hindu Business Line : TN Govt invites bids for Chennai monorail project

The Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) has identified about 490 km of principal transit routes within the city and surrounding areas to form part of an integrated inter-modal mass transit network. It proposes to take up 300 km of this for the monorail project.

Chennai , Jan. 10

THE Metropolitan Transport Corporation (Chennai) Ltd, a Tamil Nadu Government undertaking, has invited bids for a monorail project for Chennai.

Bidders have to take care of the entire project - designing, financing, developing and maintaining it.

A monorail project for Chennai was mooted a few years ago but nothing much happened, as a private company that was supposed to put up a demonstration line, but did not proceed with its plans. Since then, the State Government has been examining various options to improve the public transport system for Chennai and its fast-growing suburbs.

These options include a metro rail system, whose feasibility is now being studied, and an elevated monorail project on some important transit corridors. According to the advertisement issued in newspapers today, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) has identified about 490 km of principal transit routes within the city and surrounding areas to form part of an integrated inter-modal mass transit network. It proposes to take up 300 km of this for the monorail project.

The MTC has invited bids from those who are experienced in commercially operating a rail network for 50 km or a monorail system for 15 km, for the last five years and proven track record of raising both debt and equity, in the domestic and foreign markets.

The bidders should also have an average annual gross turnover of Rs 5,000 crore ($1.11 billion), an average net worth of Rs 3,000 crore ($660 million), average cash accruals of Rs 500 crore ($111 million) and should have funded or raised funds for projects having an aggregate cost of Rs 7,000 crore ($1.5 billion) in the last five years, out of which a minimum 10 per cent should be in the transportation sector.

The system, according to the advertisement, is to be executed on a `design, develop, construct, finance, own, operate, maintain and transfer' (DBOOT) basis.

The corporation will be willing to sign a concession agreement with the successful bidder, be it an individual company or a consortium that meets the bid conditions, for 40 years, including the construction period. The system has to be cost effective and energy efficient. It should be designed in such a way that it can be expanded to meet demand in terms of capacity and route expansion.

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