LTA to appoint new contractor for troubled section of Downtown Line soon

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) will award a tender to one of six shortlisted contractors to take over development works on the troubled stations - King Albert Park, Sixth Avenue and Tan Kah Kee - of the upcoming Downtown Line (DTL) from the now bankrupt Austrian builder, Alpine Bau. 

LTA wants to minimise delay to the project and expects to appoint a company within a month. The six shortlisted companies include McConnell Dowell SEA, Penta-Ocean Construction, Nishimatsu Construction, Samsung C&T Corp, Shanghai Tunnel Engineering and SKEC (Singapore).

The line was originally scheduled to be running by 2015, but Transport Minister, Lui Tuck Yew, informed in Parliament last month of a delay and potential increase in costs to the project.

Chan Weng Tat, Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering told The Straits Times that much depended on 'the smoothness of the handover' on top of agreeing that a four months work suspension would be 'a bit tough to make up'.

Currently, the three stations are looked after by McConnell Dowell to maintain safety and security of the site while concurrently working on the North of the affected portion.