THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Just a single party has shown interest in the much-awaited monorail projects of Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode in the state. Opening of the tender bids was held in the Delhi office of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Friday. Bombardier, the multinational aerospace and transportation company based in Canada, is the sole respondent this time. It was for the fourth time deadline for submission of tenders got postponed. But chances for floating a new tender or date extension is unlikely to happen, according to officials.
“As the date has been extended many times, the project is likely to go ahead with the present bidder, provided the rate complies with the estimate we set. The tender committee will meet soon and open the financial bid,” said P I Sheik Pareeth, managing director of Kerala Monorail Corporation Limited (KMCL).
The project estimate is Rs 5,581 crore for both. A pre-bid meeting was convened in February which saw the participation of companies including Bombardier, Hitachi, Scomi, L&T and IL&FS. Monorail is to
cover a distance of 22 kilometres in Thiruvananthapuram 14.2 km in Kozhikode.