China joins race for metro rail building

China, which is building Bangladesh's biggest bridge and broad highways, is lately dominating the bidding process for construction of the country's first metro rail in the capital.
Official sources said two Chinese, one Thai and two Indian companies submitted their proposals on the closing day for submission of request for proposals (RfP) for three packages on October 18 and on September 28.  
A Japanese firm which came first and crossed the threshold for the metro-rail job backtracked in the end.            
The sources said all the shortlisted companies in three packages of work plan, excepting the Japanese one, submitted their proposals.  Tokyu Construction of Japan, which prequalified for contract packages (CPs) 3 and 4, refrained from laying its stake.
Three companies, two of them Chinese, participated in the RfP for CP-2 which was called to construct necessary infrastructures on the depot land in Uttara.
In the CP 3 and 4, four companies were declared prequalified but three finally submitted their proposals for constructing the first 10 kilometres of the elevated metro-rail track from Uttara to Agargaon.
Two other companies - Simplex, and Larson and Turbo-are participating in the bidding. Both are from India. The first one is vying for CP 2 and the second one (Larson and Turbo) for CP 3 and 4.
China Harbour Engineering Company has participated in all three packages while Sino Hydro Corporation formed a joint venture with Thailand's Italian-Thai Development for the CP-2. The Thai company is also participating in the CP 3 and 4.
The firms of China-the neo-rich nation which has held out pledges for providing billions of dollars for bankrolling Bangladesh's development recipe during the recent Dhaka visit of President Xi Jinping-are now learnt to be dominating the biddings for all the three packages of metro works.
Chinese builders are presently constructing the Padma Multipurpose Bridge and completed two four-lane highways between Dhaka and Chittagong and Dhaka and Mymensingh. Beijing also struck a deal for another four-lane highway on the Dhaka-Sylhet route under the latest aid package.           
The Dhaka Mass Rapid Transit Development (DMRTD) Project invited request for proposals for its contract packages 2, 3 and 4 providing scope for the interested companies to give proposals jointly for CP3 and CP4.
Prequalification process for the CP2 began on August 30, 2015 and CP 3 and 4 on June 30, 2015.
The project authority had already called biddings for all of eight packages but awarded its first contract to Tokyu Construction for the development of Uttara depot land on March 27.
Officials said prequalification process for CP 5 and 6 is now going on while evaluation of RfPs for CP 7 and 8 is underway.
The metro rail, officially known as mass rapid transit line-6 (MRT-6), will run from Uttara to Motijheel to facilitate more than 60,000 daily passengers crossing 20 kilometres uninterrupted over the capital city, wherein traffic now hits impasse at many places along the way.
Japan International Cooperation Agency has been providing necessary supports, including technical and financial, for implementing the long-planned project. The government has set the target to inaugurate the first 10-km MRT line end of 2019.
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