RailEnquiry

Overcoming several hurdles, Kerala Monorail Corporation Ltd (KMCL) on Wednesday signed the general consultancy agreement with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for the ambitious Rs.5,581-crore elevated mass rapid transit system in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode.The agreement was signed by S.D. Sharma, Director, Business Development, DMRC, and P.C. Harikesh, Managing Director, KMCL, in the presence of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, his Cabinet colleagues including Minister for Public Works V.K. Ebrahim Kunju, Union Minister of State for Human Resource Development Shashi Tharoor, Speaker G. Karthikeyan, legislators, Principal Adviser of the DMRC E. Sreedharan, and top officials at the Assembly complex here.The Chief Minister said the monorail for the two cities were dream projects of his government like that of Kochi Metro Rail and sought the cooperation of all for time-bound completion of the projects. He congratulated Mr. Kunju and Mr. Sreedharan for enabling the project to take off. Mr. Sreedharan said it was a red-letter day for the DMRC and promised that the latest and the best of frontline technology would be introduced in the two cities.A single agreement was signed with the DMRC for the projects, as the general consultant and executing agency are the same. The DMRC will get 3.25 per cent of the Rs.5,581 crore as consultancy fee and the mode of payment will be on quarterly basis.

Of the Rs.5,581 crore, Rs.3,590 crore is expected to be incurred for the Thiruvananthapuram project and Rs.1,991 crore for Kozhikode. He said the pre-qualification tenders for the projects would be floated soon.

The agreement will make the DMRC responsible for the design, preparation of bid document, short-listing and selecting contractors, supervision, and quality certification of the 22.2-km monorail in Thiruvananthapuram and the 14.2-km in Kozhikode.

The capital monorail has been mooted from Technocity to Karamana and the Kozhikode monorail from the government medical college hostel area to Meenchantha.