NOW that the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project has resumed, main contractor China Construction and Communication Company (CCCC) has instructed its design department employees to return to work in Malaysia by the 23rd this month.

Project owner Malaysia Rail Link Sdn Bhd (MRL) confirmed the matter with The Malaysian Insight, saying that the earlier stop-work order on the project has been lifted.

“According to instructions issued on July 3, 2018, we (MRL) have requested for all work on the ECRL to stop,” said an MRL directive issued on April 16.

“Due to the agreement achieved on April 12, we would like to inform that the stop-work order has been lifted and construction shall continue. This directive takes effect on April 12.”

The ECRL has four primary design departments, with one of them being a local company while the rest are linked to China.

Former Council of Eminent Persons chairman Daim Zainuddin had on April 12 signed an agreement in China for the continuation of ECRL at a lower cost, and Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced the resumption of the project at a press conference in Malaysia on April 15.

Dr Mahathir had said local contractors would now construct 40% of the project under the new agreement, as opposed to 30% under the old terms.

Under the revised agreement, the dual-tracked ECRL’s 688km route will be reduced by 40km and its price per km will also be reduced from RM95.8 million to RM68.7 million. A total of eight stops have been scrapped.

The new path now avoids the previous plan to cut through the Klang Gates Quartz Ridge in Gombak, Selangor, the world’s longest pure quartz dyke which the government is proposing as a Unesco heritage site.

The path will now travel south via Negri Sembilan, reducing tunnelling and adding integration to existing rail networks such as the MRT, the Express Rail Link to the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and KTM intercity services.

Dr Mahathir had announced shortly after Pakatan Harapan won the last elections, that the ECRL would be scrapped but later revealed that Malaysia could not afford to terminate the agreement as a compensation of RM21.78 billion would have to be paid to Beijing. – April 21, 2019.