Bidding criteria for MRT Orange Line project amended

“The changing of criteria is necessary as the construction of the Orange Line consists of underwater construction which requires additional technical requirements,” he said. “The change is legal and not prohibited by the Public-Private Partnership Act BE2562.”
Phakapong added that the amended bidding criteria will be issued next week to all parties who had bought bid envelopes, and the MRTA will extend the bid submission deadline by 45 days, from September 23 to November 6, to allow time for bidders to prepare their proposals.
“The changing of criteria aims to guarantee the highest profit to the government while maintaining transparency in the bidding process,” he added. “No bidders will be at an advantage or disadvantage due to this change, which gives the score ratio of 30 per cent to technical proposal and 70 per cent to price proposal.”
Pakapong clarified that the committee’s decision to implement the change did not occur after Italian Thai Development had filed an appeal to change the selection criteria by adding score ratio from the technical proposal. “We had this idea of changing criteria for a long time, but the old criteria was announced before the Public-Private Partnership Act came into effect, so we had to use them when selling bid envelopes for the Orange Line project,” he said.
On August 20, Surapong Laoha-Unya, chief executive officer of Bangkok Mass Transit System Pcl (BTS), sent a letter to the MRTA governor urging the MRTA to clarify the reason for changing the bidding criteria of the MRT Orange Line project. He also expressed concern that selection of the bid winner based on score from technical proposal could lead to biased selection. He suggested that the MRTA should use only the score from the price proposal to select the bid winner in order to guarantee the highest profit to the government. The copy of the letter was also forwarded to the bid selection committee of the MRT Orange Line project, which is chaired by Kittikorn Tanpao, deputy MRTA governor.
The MRTA Orange Line Project consists of construction of 13.4km of tracks from Thailand Cultural Center to Bang Khun Non stations and installation of train system and train operation for the distance of 35.9km from Min Buri to Bang Khun Non stations. It has a budget of Bt142.7 billion with 10 companies having bought bidding envelopes. The companues are: Bangkok Expressway and Metro, Bangkok Mass Transit System, BTS Group Holdings, Sino-Thai Engineering and Construction, Italian-Thai Development, Ratch Group, Ch. Karnchang, Gulf Energy Development, Sinohydro Corporation and Woranitath Development.