Monorail may get Malaysian takers

Thiruvananthapuram: Scomi Engineering based in Malaysia has shown interest in the revised bidding process for the Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode monorails. Its CEO, Kanesan Velupillai, told reporters here that Scomi had recently won three projects out of four awarded globally - Mumbai and two monorail projects in Brazil.

Incidentally,  Scomi Engineering had not applied in the earlier bid when the German company Bombardier Transportation was the only one in the field.

The state government was forced to  relax  the norms towards the final bidding as only Bombardier Transportation submitted the Expression Of Interest (EOI) when the extended deadline ended on October 17.

The state was  against the EOI from one company alone and decided to go for retendering. Velupillai said his company was  keen on  the revised bidding process, but did not reveal  what were the relaxed norms.

“We want to do business here. We have already had the distinction of executing India’s first monorail project  in Mumbai worth Rs 2,460 crore. Work on phase-I comprising seven stations has  been completed and it is expected to be commissioned very soon.

Phase-II work is in progress and 70 percent has been completed,”  said Velupillai. He also said his team had already met the state government officials and that they were receptive to the team’s ideas.