Land has been cleared for metro line No. 2 of Bến Thành-Tham Lương in HCM City. VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — The selection of contractors for the relocation of infrastructure for metro line No. 2 of Bến Thành-Tham Lương in HCM City has been completed, according to HCM City Urban Railway Project Management Board.

The relocation will start on June 22.

Nguyễn Quốc Hiển, the Project Management Board’s vice director, said technical infrastructure affected by the project, including water supply and drainage, electricity, telecommunications, trees and lighting will be relocated to create space for the construction of the metro project.

The plan for compensation has been approved, said Hiển.

The management board has also approved the construction designs of bidding packages, he said.

Site clearance of the whole project has reached 86.69 per cent with 508 out of 586 works handed over. There are 66  remaining parts in District 3 which have not reached an agreement on compensation.

In April, the city’s People’s Committee set up a special working team to solve issues relating to ground clearance with the goal of completing the entire site by the end of this year.

The Project Management Board is organising the bidding for the main packages of the project, in which it is currently focusing on selecting the general consultant for the CS2B package, covering design consultancy, project control and construction supervision.

The CS2B package has completed the prequalification stage and selected a short list of four candidates, which are joint ventures from France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Korea, India and Việt Nam.

The Project Management Board will continue to implement phase 2 of the bidding in August and complete it early next year to review the design and organise bidding for construction and main equipment by the end of next year.

Construction of a number of bidding packages is scheduled to start in 2025.

The office building and ancillary works at Tham Lương Depot were completed and put into use.

This building is the office of the Project Management Board and consulting units and will be the operation centre of metro line 2 after the project is completed.

Metro line No. 2, phase 1 of Bến Thành-Tham Lương passes through districts 1, 3, 10, 12, Tân Bình and Tân Phú of HCM City.

Total investment is VNĐ47,890 billion (over US$2 billion), of which ODA capital is VNĐ37,486 billion ($1.58 billion) and reciprocal capital is VNĐ10,403 billion ($438.9 million).

The route length is more than 11km, of which about 9.1km is underground, with nine underground stations, one elevated station and one depot.

After completing metro line No.2, phase 2 of Bến Thành -Thủ Thiêm, Tham Lương-Tây Ninh Bus Station, and phase 3 of Tây Ninh Bus Station- northwestern Củ Chi will contribute to promoting the rapid development of two new urban areas of the city of Thủ Thiêm and Northwest Củ Chi urban areas.

The metro line No.1 of Bến Thành - Suối Tiên will begin testing on September 2.

So far, metro line No. 1 has reached 95 per cent completion, and the remaining 5 per cent, including architecture, equipment installation, testing, evaluation and acceptance, will be completed within the year, said Hiển. — VNS