KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 9): Transport Minister Anthony Loke Siew Fook reiterated the government's commitment to proceeding with the Mass Rapid Transit 3 (MRT3) project.
He emphasised that MRT3 is already planned and will be executed.
"The Ministry of Transport is in progress of land acquisition for the MRT3 line, but the decision on when to award the project is under the purview of the Ministry of Finance," Loke told a media briefing on Prasarana Malaysia Bhd's 2023 performance and future plans.
MRT3, also known as the Circle Line, will serve as the final piece of the Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit network, connecting various mass rapid and light rail transits within the national conurbation to form a comprehensive network.
According to project owner and developer Mass Rapid Transit Corp Sdn Bhd (MRT Corp), the alignment of MRT3 will run along the perimeter of the city of Kuala Lumpur, connecting to existing MRT, Light Rail Transit (LRT), KTM Komuter, and KL Monorail lines through 10 interchange stations.
Last month, Loke was quoted by Bernama saying that MRT Corp will begin its land acquisition process in stages from next year for the MRT3 project.
The land acquisition process, which will take two years to be finalised, is expected to involve 1,012 lots of land covering 842 private lots of land, government land (133 lots), and unknown land (37 lots), according to Loke.
As for the LRT3 project, Loke said construction had reached nearly 92% as of Dec 25.
With that, the first phase of LRT3, which consists of 20 existing stations, is on track to commence operations by March 1, 2025, if everything goes smoothly, Loke told the media.
The 37km LRT3 line, initially consisting of 26 stations and aiming to serve the western corridor of the Greater Klang Valley, was inaugurated in 2016 during the Barisan Nasional administration, with a budget of RM9 billion at that time.
The RM9 billion amount did not include other costs such as project delivery partner fees (6%), other consultant fees, operational and overhead costs, as well as interest payments during construction, resulting in a total cost of RM31.7 billion.
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