Chennai Monorail - Tender Process

Tender Process

• 15 August 2011:The Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), the nodal agency for implementing the project has called for Submission of Request for Qualification (RFQ) for the proposed Chennai Monorail Mass Rapid Transit System on Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) Basis. The role of Tamil Nadu state government will be limited to fixing fares based on a concessionaire agreement.
• 8 September 2011:Pre-bid conference for monorail project held. It was an opportunity for prospective bidders to seek clarifications about the scope of the project and the tendering process. Over 10 entities attended the pre-bid meeting, only three – L&T-Hitachi and firms from Malaysia and the United Kingdom – cleared the technical criteria set by the government. The pre-qualification stage of the bidding process initiated by the State government would come to a close on 28 September.
• 1 December 2011:The State government took a decision to re-float the tender for the construction of a 111-km-long monorail network in the city. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa expressed unhappiness over the pace at which the monorail project was progressing at a review meeting. There was a suggestion to re-float the tender to see if there would be more participation, but a final decision took shape early this week. A Mumbai-based firm, Fortress Financial Service, has been nominated as the official consultant for the project.
• 25 January 2012:Pre-application conference was held at the Metropolitan Transport Corporation headquarters, Chennai. This is the first step of the fresh global competitive bidding process which was initiated on 1 December after the previous tender was annulled because of limited participation. All applicants would have to submit their proposal by 20 February, following which the government's Empowered Monorail Committee would pre-qualify and shortlist suitable applicants. The ‘qualified' applicants would enter a round of financial bidding. A two-month period is likely to be given to prepare a Detailed Project Report for the implementation of a monorail system along four elevated corridors, totaling 111-km.
• 22 February 2012: Hyderabad-based Capital Fortunes Private Limited (CFPL) will assist the monorail cell in identifying the implementing agency for the monorail project. The implementing agency will also soon be finalized as the officials are all set to open the financial bid documents on 19 March. This apart, officials denied reports that one of the four proposed lines Vandalur to Puzhal would be axed. "Though it has been decided to go with three corridors, the Vandalur to Puzhal stretch is still in the reckoning. The bids will be floated for the corridor separately. The alignment will be broken into two portions."
• 19 March 2012:The government opened the financial bids received for the much-awaited, 80,500 million monorail project. Received financial bids from eight reputed developers across the world which would be scrutinised by the Hyderabad-based consultancy firm. It is learnt that it would take at least two weeks to finalise the developer. The empowered monorail committee, headed by the chief secretary is authorized to take a final call. Some participants are Malaysian firm Scomi international, players from Spain (Kafe India), Japan (Hitachi) and China have participated in the tendering process.
• 5 June 2012:The government finalising five project developers for the second and final stage, while rejecting three firms’ bids at the opening phase, after a high-level discussion "Of the eight consortia of firms that had participated in the initial stage of bidding process (request for qualification), three firms, including Met-rail, M-rail, have been disqualified, while five other firms, including Scomi International private limited, Hitachi and Bombardier, L&T, and Gammon and IL&FS have qualified for the final stage - request for proposals,". The project promoters for the next stage were finalised after a meeting of the empowered committee headed by chief secretary and secretaries of a few other departments.