THE total cost of the Light Rail Transit (LRT3) line has been reduced by 47% from RM31.65 billion to RM16.63 billion, said Lim Guan Eng. 

The finance minister said the move has saved the government and Malaysians RM15.02 billion.

“This cost will include all project costs, including but not limited to work package contracts (WPC), land acquisition, project management, consultancy fees, operational and overhead costs, as well as interest during construction,” he said in a statement today. 

The 37km LRT3 project is meant to alleviate traffic congestion along one of the most important and densely populated economic development corridors in the Klang Valley, from Klang to Petaling Jaya. 

Lim said after the cost reduction, the cabinet at its meeting yesterday decided to go ahead with the project.

The cabinet yesterday approved the continuation of the LRT3 project at a final cost of RM16.63 billion.

Lim said on March 30, Prasarana Malaysia Bhd submitted the latest projected cost of the LRT3 amounting to RM31.65 billion.

“At the same time, Prasarana sought an additional financing of RM22 billion in the form of government guarantees, on top of the initial RM10 billion granted in 2015 to finance the project.”

To reduce the costs, Lim said a renegotiation and rationalisation exercise of the LRT3 project was undertaken with all key stakeholders, including Prasarana, MRCB-George Kent joint venture (MRCB-GK JV) which is the project delivery partner (PDP) and Land Public Transportation Commission (SPAD).

One critical criterion for the review was that the integrity of the 37km LRT3 line from Johan Setia (Klang)
to Bandar Utama (Petaling Jaya) must be maintained.

In addition, the safety, frequency and quality of service must meet the requirements of the regulators, he said.

Among the key steps taken to reduce and rationalise the cost of the project include reducing the order of 42 sets of six-car trains to 22 sets of three-car trains.

He said that based on the feasibility study of the LRT3 project, the 22 sets of three-car trains are more than sufficient to cope with the anticipated passenger demand until 2035 before additional three-car trains need to be ordered.

The other measures include reducing the construction size of the LRT train depot because of the fewer
number of LRT trains to be acquired.

This includes streamlining the size and design of the LRT stations based on the Kelana Jaya LRT line standards instead of being benchmarked against the much larger MRT stations.

The new LRT line is expected to serve two million riders with the capacity to transport 36,700 passengers per hour each way. – July 12, 2018.