Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track: Three Indian cos shortlisted

KATHMANDU, DEC 09 -

Three Indian companies have been shortlisted for the development of the Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track project. The government will to issue request for proposal (RFP) to these firms within a week.

The three companies are Reliance Infrastructure, Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) and Larsen and Turbo (L&T) Infrastructure Development Project. They were shortlisted among four applicants after evaluation of their expression of interest (EoI), officials at the Ministry of Physical Planning, Works and Transport Management said.

Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Infrastructure had also participated in two previous EoIs called in 2009 and 2011 for the 76km express highway project. “We are preparing to issue the RFP to the shortlisted firms within a week,” said Tulasi Prasad Sitaula, secretary at the Physical Planning Ministry. The government will seek technical and financial proposals from firms through the RFP to select one firm for the construction of the much-talked about project under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) modal.

Ministry officials said it would take around four-six months to evaluate the technical and financial proposals.

The fourth applicant, Gammon India, was rejected as it failed to meet the criteria. Only the firms having experience in infrastructure projects worth over $1,500 million or BOT projects involving highways and bridges costing over $500 million in the last 10 years were eligible to apply, according to the criteria set by the government in the EoI. Also, the bidder should have had a net worth of $150 million or more.

The government had invited the third EoI in July in an effort to encourage international firms to involve local companies in the project as per the directives of the dissolved Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The new EoI allows local contractors to have a share of up to 10 percent in the total cost of the project in partnership with international firms.

The planned expressway linking Kathmandu with the Southern Tarai is estimated to cost over Rs 80 billion. “The shortlisted firms will do an in-depth study and propose the size of the investment to the government,” said an official.

The government has aimed to construct the route under the public private partnership (PPP) model. The contractor should complete the construction with five years from the date of the agreement signing.

So far, the government has completed opening 58km track. However, track opening work on 8-km Khokana section has been halted due to land compensation issue. According to the ministry’s estimate, around Rs 3 billion is required for providing compensation to Khokana locals.

Source: The Kathmandu Post