13 companies put hands up for Hua Hin railway

Thirteen construction companies have expressed interest in joining the bidding for construction of the Hua Hin-Prachuap Khiri Khan double-track railway.

They submitted the bid envelopes outlining their qualifications and technical proposals to the State Railway of Thailand (SRT) on Friday, acting SRT governor Anon Luangboriboon said.

The move came after the SRT board approved e-bidding for the 84km rail project on April 24. A total of 38 companies bought bid envelopes for the project, which has a median price of 7.3 billion baht.

The 13 companies are Unique Engineering and Construction Plc, Italian-Thai Development Plc, TBTC Joint Venture Co, Ch Karnchang Plc, KSS Joint Venture, Ch Tawee Construction Co, Serm Sanguan Construction Co, Thai P-Con Civil Joint Venture, Power Construction Technology Co, SHPS Joint Venture, Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction Plc, PPDEMRAIL JV and A.S. Associate Engineering 1964 Co.

Mr Anon said the SRT will announce the companies qualified to contest the bidding next Monday. They will be required to submit the bids on July 27, he said.

The project is planned to shorten travel time, save on transport fuel, reduce pollution and boost public transport in the rural and urban areas. It is also aims to draw more people to use the rail service.

The project hit a snag earlier this year after the scrutiny “superboard” for state procurement scrapped the original terms of terms of reference (ToR) for the project, criticised for barring small-and medium-sized companies form submitting bids.

The superboard and the SRT board later agreed to divide the original five contracts into 13. The move resulted in the separation of signal installation for each project from civil work and track construction.

The project is part of the government’s ambitious plan to mobilise five doubletrack railway projects, worth a total of 95.8 billion baht.