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KUALA LUMPUR: Work on rail megaprojects like the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) and Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) continue despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had pledged to continue all Budget 2020 projects, including ECRL and Mass Rapid Transit 2 (MRT2), when he introduced the Prihatin Rakyat (Prihatin) Economic Stimulus Package on March 27.
Malaysia Rail Link (MRL) Chief Executive Officer Darwis Abdul Razak expressed confidence that the 640 km ECRL will be completed as scheduled.
“This is because the overall project is slightly ahead of schedule, driven by rapid construction work for the ECRL alignment in section A (Kota Bharu-Dungun) and section B (Dungun-Mentakab).” he told Bernama recently.
According to him, the project has posted an overall progress rate of 18.10% to date compared to 16.86% in June.
The project was only 0.02% behind in its implementation schedule during the motion control order imposed on March 18, it said.
Currently, he said, the construction mainly involved earthworks, tunneling, bridge work, foundation work and pre-cast vertical drains.
“The number of priority construction locations, in sections A and B, is expected to increase to 101 locations by the end of the year, up from 27 locations a year ago,” he added.
MRL is also relying on the recent recruitment of locals from the East Coast states of Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang in ECRL’s Industrial Skills Training Program, for potential jobs in the railway construction sector, to accelerate development.
Darwis said that MRL intends for 70% of its ECRL workforce of 23,000 to be Malaysians.
As such, MRL anticipates that Budget 2021 will provide incentives to boost construction work and support the hiring of local labor.
The ECRL project, which is expected to be fully completed by December 2026, is divided into three sections, namely Section A (Kota Bharu-Dungun), Section B (Dungun-Mentakab) and Section C (Mentakab- Port Klang).
Regarding Section C, the government had said that it was renegotiating with the Chinese government and the project’s prime contractor to finalize the alignment costs and the project’s implementation schedule.
LRT3 advances
Meanwhile, Thought Partners Group Consulting (TPG) founder and managing partner Abi Sofian Abdul Hamid said the Light Rail Transit 3 (LRT3) project was also progressing.
He said that LRT3 will be fully completed in February 2024, with 33.12% of work done so far.
Upon completion, the 37.8km project will connect the western Klang Valley corridor and Kuala Lumpur.
Regarding MRT projects, the developer told Bernama that the advance of the Putrajaya Line as of August 2020 was 79.2%.
MRT Corporation Sdn Bhd (MRT Corp) SSP line project manager Amiruddin Ma’aris recently said that phase one, involving the Kwasa Damansara and Kampung Batu MRT stations, should be able to start operations mid- 2021, and the rest of the line for 2022.
The Putrajaya MRT line is the second line of the Klang Valley MRT project. It will have 36 stations, of which nine are underground. The entire alignment is 56.2 km, from Kwasa Damansara to Putrajaya Sentral.
