Six firms from India, five from South Korea, two each from China and Spain and one each from Czech Republic, Australia, Austria and France have submitted Expression of Interest (EoI) to the Department of Railways. URS Scott Wilson India P Ltd, RITES Ltd, M R Technofin Consultant P Ltd, Balaji Railroad Systems Limited, SAI Consulting Engineers P Ltd and SN BHOBE & Associate P Ltd of India; DONG MYEONG Engineering Consultants & Architects, SAMAN Corporation and Yooshin Engineering Corporation of South Korea; AECOM Asia Company Limited and China Railway SIYUAN Survey and Design Group of China; Ardanuy Ingenieria S A and INECO Ingenieria y Economia del Transporte S A of Spain have expressed interests to conduct designs and surveys of both the projects. [break]
SMEC International P Ltd of Australia, SYSTRA SA of France, BERNARD Ingenieure ZT GmbH of Austria and SUDOP PRAHA A S are also interested in both the projects.
However, SOOSUNG Engineering Co Ltd has expressed interest only in 114 kilometers long Simara-Tamsaria section, while another South Korea firm DOHWA Engineering Co Ltd (Korea) has submitted EoI for 109 kilometers long Tamsaria-Butwal-Madhavaliya-Bhairawa (Lumbini) section.
“We are studying the documents submitted by all the firms. We will shortlist six firms before asking them to submit Request for Proposal (RFP) that includes technical and financial proposals,” said Rajeshwore Man Singh, senior official at the department.
The government will select one firm after evaluating the RFP submitted by the six firms.
As per the EOI procedure, aspirant firms have to submit their company profile, annual turnover and work experience over the past five years along with workforce at their disposal among others.
Singh said consulting firm has to complete detail survey and design with cost estimation on the basis of feasibility study report which was submitted by RITES Ltd (India) to the department last year.
He further added that the proposal to conduct detail survey and designing of last section Butwal-Mahendranagar (around 400 km) of the proposed broad gauge East-West Railway (945 km) is in the process of getting approval from the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
“We are waiting for the MoF´s consent as the proposal has already been approved by the Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (MoPPW). We will invite EoI for the project once we get the finance ministry´s consent,” added Singh.
The government has already signed an agreement with Chungsuk Engineering Company of Korea to conduct detail study and design of Bardibas-Simara-Birgunj Section (102 km) of the East-West Railway.
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