Passengers waiting to board a train on the Cat Linh - Ha Dong metro line. (Photo: VnEconomy)A decision recently signed by Deputy Prime Minister Le MinhKhai stipulates the capital for the project is taken from the centralbudget mid-term public investment plan 2021-2025.
The capital for the project consists of more than 223 billion VND(9.4 million USD) of domestic capital and nearly 688 billion VND (29 millionUSD) of foreign capital.
The capital is disbursed for the part of the project that wasalready implemented and did not increase the total investment.
Khai ordered the Ministry of Transport to allocate the capital torelevant units following regulations.
The ministry needs to report the capital allocation to theMinistry of Planning and Investment as well as the Ministry of Finance in thefirst half of January 2023.
Then the ministries have to take responsibility for the accuracyof the content and data related to the capital, which will be reported to thePrime Minister and relevant agencies.
The Cat Linh–Ha Dong urban railway project is 13 km long, with atotal initial investment in 2008 is 8.76 trillion VND (equivalent to 552.8million USD at that time).
By 2017, the total investment capital increased to over 18trillion VND (about 868 million USD then).
The project uses loans from the Chinese Government and domesticcounterpart funds.
The line started running in November 2021. It was officiallyinaugurated on January 13 this year, the same day the line carried itsone-millionth passenger.
Statistics at the end of November this year showed that the linehas served about 7.3 million passengers, of which more than 10,000 people usemonthly tickets after more than a year of official operation.
Since coming into operation, more than 66,580 trains have ran, bringingin revenue of about 53 billion VND (2.24 million USD).
Trains run every 10 minutes. One-way tickets cost from 8,000-15,000VND (0.35-0.65 USD) for a trip and 30,000 VND (1.26 USD) for a day pass.
A monthly pass is priced at 200,000 VND (8.40 USD) with lowerprice schemes available for bulk purchases by companies or factories.
The Ministry of Transport has also asked the Ministry of Planningand Investment to report to the Government on the extension of theimplementation time of the Cat Linh–Ha Dong urban railway project to November6, 2023.
The Ministry of Transport said that although the line has beenhanded over and put into operation, the Engineering Procurement andConstruction (EPC) general contractor and relevant units still have to continueperforming the project's remaining tasks according to the provisions of thesigned contract.
The tasks include procurement of spare parts and supplies,specialised equipment for the depot area; assessment of the system for signalitems in the initial stage of operation, and completion of the tasks accordingto the notice No.107, dated November 5, 2021 of the State Inspection Council.
The extension of the project implementation time is also the basisfor extending the implementation time of the EPC contract and as a basis forextending the implementation time of the bidding packages related to the EPCcontract such as supervision consultancy and technical design consultation./.
VNA
