Hanoi second metro PJT is delayed

(Engineering daily) Nguyen Anh Duong = 5th Hyundai-Ghella consortium said that it has not received all the land required to construct four underground metro stations.

The consortium, comprising a South Korean and an Italian company, needs four land plots to construct the S9, S10, S11 and S12 stations. But so far it has only received the land for S9 and part of the land for S10. The land needed for building the S11 and S12 stations has not been handed over yet.

So Hyundai, Ghella have demanded $81million in compensation for delays in handing over construction land.

The government will disburse funds to the contractors and the consultancy consortium this month. But The MRB, which operates the metro project, said that the compensation claimed is the contractors's valuation that has not been verified.

The Nhon-Hanoi Railway Station route, or the second metro line, runs 12.5㎞ from Nhon area in the western district of Nam Tu Liem, via Kim Ma Street to Hanoi Railway Station in the downtown area.

Work on the line first began in 2010, with the cost estimated at $1.2 billion and operations scheduled to start in 2017, but delays have pushed the cost up to $1.55 billion.

So far about half of the project has been completed. The MRB plans to commercially operate the elevated section next year and the underground section in 2022.