Details on high-speed rail job out by 2017

KUALA LUMPUR: Details of the contracts for the construction of the KL-Singapore high-speed rail (HSR) will likely be known in two years, said the Land Public Transport Commission chief development officer Dr Prodyut Dutt.

“Given that the development takes about five years and we aim to complete it in 2022, working backwards, we should see the details of these contracts by the year 2017,” he said on the sidelines of the Rail Business Asia 2015 exhibition.

“There is a lot of preliminary work that needs to be done before the tender documents can come out. And these works are currently in progress.

“While this is a project by both the Malaysian and Singaporean governments, there is always a need to jointly consult Singapore,” Dutt added.

Details of the cost-sharing formula with the Singapore government counterpart have still not been fixed yet, he said.

When asked, Dutt also said that there would be no duplicates or redundancy from this HSR project even though it runs along the same route as KTM Bhd’s double-tracking project.

When KTM’s double-tracking railway project is fully completed eventually, it will connect the north and south of Peninsular Malaysia and there are concerns that there may be too much redundancy, given the capital costs that have to be sunk into both projects.

“Our preliminary studies show that the returns are positive. If you look at the experiences abroad where there is HSR, whether it is China, Japan or France, you will find that the benefits would not just be in the terminus cities, but also the cities in between, as it helps to regenerate those in between as well,” Dutt said.

“We think the HSR project is a different mode and targets a different market (compared with the double track). All things considered, we believe the social and economic development will be positive overall,” he added.

Dutt said in his speech earlier that KTM’s double-tracking line from Gemas to Padang Besar would be launched in November this year.