The Department of Transportation and Communications is giving prequalified groups more time to prepare bids for the Light Rail Transit Line 2 public private partnership (PPP) deal.
The DOTC said in a Dec. 15 bid bulletin that the bid submission date has been moved to Jan. 26, 2016. Originally, the submission date was set this month.
The LRT-2 PPP deal calls for the private sector to operate and maintain the existing line for a period of 10 years, extendable by another five years.
The LRT-2 project is the second railway PPP deal rolled out by the Aquino administration. The first deal, the P65-billion PPP project to operate and expand the LRT Line 1 to Cavite province, was won by the Light Rail Manila Consortium of Ayala Corp. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. last year.
Ayala and Metro Pacific are also jointly bidding for LRT-2 as well as other groups, namely San Miguel Corp., Aboitiz Equity Ventures and the Consunji family’s DMCI Holdings.
San Miguel partnered with Korea Railroad Corp., DMCI unit D.M Consunji Inc. partnered with Tokyo Metro Co. of Japan, Aboitiz Equity Ventures partnered with Singapore’s SMRT Transportation and Ayala-Metro Pacific-led Light Rail Manila partnered with France’s RATP Dev.
The delayed bid submission is likely to affect the timing of an award and signing of the concession agreement, earlier expected by February 2016. Transportation Secretary Joseph Abaya said it was their intention to award the project before President Aquino steps down in mid-2016.
The 13.8-kilometer LRT-2 line runs from Recto Avenue to the Depot at Santolan Street along Marcos Highway. It currently traverses the cities of Manila, San Juan, Quezon City, Marikina and Pasig. The railway line handled almost 200,000 people a day in 2014, latest data from the Light Rail Transit Authority showed.