By Anh Quan - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – The HCMC government has asked district authorities to hand over land for construction of the city’s first subway by December 15, instead of September as originally planned.
Districts 1, 2, 9 and Thu Duc are urged to speed up site clearance and hand over the ready land to the investor before the deadline, Deputy Director of Transport Department Bui Xuan Cuong said at a meeting on Tuesday.
According to the Management Authority for Urban Railways, the site clearance and compensation progress in the project has fallen behind schedule. Meanwhile, the city needs to take back 322,000 square meters of land from 287 families and 13 agencies to build the metro.
The urban rail line will stretch 19.7 kilometers, including 2.6 kilometers underground and 14 stations. The total cost of the project has been revised up to US$2 billion while official development assistance is around US$1 billion.
The first package of the project underway is the depot construction in District 9. The city expects to launch the subway into use in 2015.