Prasarana shortlists 28 for MRT works

KUALA LUMPUR: Syarikat Prasarana Negara Bhd, the project owner of Malaysia's biggest rail infrastructure project, My Rapid Transit (MRT), has shortlisted 28 individual and joint-venture companies that can bid for various elevated civil works, stations and depot packages under the multi-billion ringgit project.

In a statement yesterday, Prasarana group managing director Shahril Mokhtar said these tenders would be called in stages beginning from next month until December 2012.

"Tender for the first stage, which involves two civil works packages, will be issued early next month," Shahril said.

The two packages are a 5.4km stretch from Taman Bukit Ria to Plaza Phoenix in Cheras and the other covering a 5.2km stretch from Taman Suntex to Bandar Tun Hussein Onn.
There are 18 packages with eight packages under elevated civil works, another eight for elevated station works and two for depot.

These packages are divided into two categories - the open category and the Bumiputera category.

Applicants were evaluated based on their financial capabilities, track record, experiences, existing management staff and key personnel, the average annual construction turnover in the last five years, their existing plant and equipment as well as their existing quality, safety, health and environment practices.

For joint-venture submissions, technical and financial evaluations were carried out on the individual companies with the total score of their technical and financial points combined based on their equity percentage.

The pre-qualification exercise attracted strong response with 286 companies purchasing the tender document which was opened through two public advertisements by Prasarana with a total of 195 companies submitting their appli-cations.

Hailed as the country's biggest infrastructure project as part of the Greater Klang Valley Master Plan, the MRT would provide the backbone service to the existing public transportation system and would be integrated with the existing LRT, KL Monorail and KTM services. 

To cut through the city centre from Sungai Buloh to Kajang, the new MRT will run for some 51km including 9.5km through underground tunnels and will be serviced by 27 elevated stations and seven stations underground; and depots at Sungai Buloh and Kajang. 

"Tenders for the other packages will be announced in due course," added Shahril.