Prime Minister Inspects Site, Urges Progress on Hanoi-Nhon Railway Project

Accompanying the Prime Minister are Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Tran Sy Thanh, leaders of central ministries, agencies and Hanoi.

The Nhon – Hanoi Metro Line is 12.5 km long, with 8 elevated stations, 4 underground stations, passing through 6 districts, including Bac Tu Liem, Nam Tu Liem, Cau Giay, Dong Da, Hoan Kiem and Ba Dinh.

The Hanoi Urban Railway Project Management Board said that the overall progress of the project is now about 77%, of which the elevated section from Nhon to Kim Ma has achieved 99.7%; expected to be operational in June 2024.

With the underground section currently progressing about 40%, the contractor is focusing on accelerating the construction of the structure of the underground stations to soon start the tunnel boring machine construction in the second quarter of 2024.

S12 underground station is the deepest among the 4 underground stations of the metro line, with a design of 3 basement floors, the deepest point is located 35 meters below the ground. The remaining underground stations have only 2 floors, 29 meters deep. S12 underground station is located on the project’s progress “line”, if delayed, the entire project will be delayed accordingly.

Currently, there are about 40 foreign experts, 100 consultants, supervisors, and about 700-800 workers working on the entire project site.

At the construction site, the Prime Minister exchanged ideas with representatives of Hanoi City, the Project Management Board, contractors, foreign experts, engineers, and workers about the project implementation; especially the Prime Minister carefully studied the evaluation of foreign experts on the quality of Vietnamese engineers and workers, as well as measures to promote the project progress… Foreign experts highly appreciate the level and sense of responsibility of Vietnamese engineers and workers.

The Prime Minister welcomes contractors who have a clear sense of the importance of the project to Hanoi, as well as the current situation of the project, thereby defining responsibilities, strengthening manpower and machinery to work during Tet.

The Prime Minister said that the project has been delayed, so the Government is very concerned about speeding up the progress, not allowing it to continue to be delayed, because the longer it is delayed, the higher the cost and the lower the investment efficiency.

In terms of quality, the Prime Minister believes that the geology in the project area is relatively complex, requiring research to address the related issues. On the other hand, the project has a narrow construction site, so construction requires ensuring safety, environmental hygiene, scientific and reasonable work calculation.

According to the Prime Minister, Vietnam has not had much experience with metro projects, so it must hire foreign consultants and contractors, therefore, it hopes to receive foreign attention in technology transfer and training to improve the quality of human resources.

The Prime Minister also suggested that consultants and contractors, designers and builders should enhance close coordination, greater efforts, higher determination, more decisive action, continue to mobilize labor and machinery to work through holidays, work through Tet with the spirit of “overcoming the sun, winning the rain,” “3 shifts, 4 teams,” “seizing opportunities, sleeping with urgency,” “only discussing work, not retreating.” The Government, relevant agencies, and Hanoi will continue to pay attention, remove difficulties and obstacles to promote the project.

The Prime Minister kindly inquired about work, life, aspirations, and welcomed the working spirit of officials and workers at the construction site and hoped that officials and workers would strive to do better and faster to make up for the lost progress due to the COVID-19 pandemic and various other reasons, but keep in mind that safety comes first.

Ha Van