Even though the government has promised to bear the cost of inflation, several government contracts for the Airport MRT have again failed to attract bidders.
The situation is expected to cause further delays to the already delayed Airport MRT project, with part of the route scheduled to launch by 2010.
Bureau of High Speed Rail Director-General Pang Jia-hua (龐家驊) said yesterday that the bureau has divided the entire construction into six smaller contracts from three big contracts.
As an added incentive, he said the government has promised to cover increased construction costs caused by inflation.
Also, in the past, qualified contractors had to demonstrate experience within the five years prior to the construction project they intended to bid for. Now, they need only present proof of experience with government contracts within the last 10 years.
All these measures did not seem to generate interest among potential parties, he said.
As of last month, the bureau had held bidding sessions for some of the Airport Rail contracts more than seven times, and none of them have helped find qualified contractors.
The bureau is holding two seminars next week to explain the new regulations to contractors, hoping the move will attract more interested contractors.
Pang said that the conundrum has a lot to do with the increased price for construction materials.
Steel grit, for example, cost about NT$16,000 per tonne when the bureau first calculated the construction costs, but is now about NT$30,000 per tonne.
The bureau estimated that the cost of steel for the project had increased by about NT$10.4 billion (US$334 million).
And the cost of the entire construction was estimated to jump from approximately NT$93.5 billion to NT$120 billion.
Pang said that another contract, labeled CI03B, is to open for bidding on Thursday. The construction covers the area from the outer ring road in Jhongli (中壢) to the high speed rail’s (HSR) Taoyuan station in Cingpu (青埔).
In related news, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) is planning to review the shuttle bus service at each HSR station.
Besides the free shuttle bus service offered by the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC), the ministry has organized 39 paid connecting bus service routes, which, on average, carry about two passengers.
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