So far, only 320, or 76 percent, of the project'spedestal footings, as well as seven foundations for its 12 trainstations and 336 of 806 concrete blocks, have been assembled andcompleted.
The 19 households at the site where the future Cat Linh station will be located have yet to agree on compensation settlement.
Thisalone has put the construction of the Cat Linh station seven monthsbehind schedule, and it will take up to a year to finish the buildingafter the site is cleared.
The Cat Linh-Ha Dong urban skytrain project was approved in 2008 with a total investment of 552million USD. This was readjusted to 892 million USD, a 61.5 percentsurge, last April.
The construction phase is supposed tobe completed at the end of December 2015, and the trial phase issupposed to begin in January 2016, said Nguyen Manh Hung, actingdirector general of the Railway Project Management Board.
Constructionwill have to be completed after the deadline that Deputy Prime MinisterHoang Trung Hai and Transport Minister Dinh La Thang set for theproject. Hai and Thang expected the trial phase to begin in October 2015and commercial activities to commence two months later, in December.
Ata recent working session, the transport minister ordered projectcontractors to step up efforts to address issues that hinderedconstruction speed and submit a progress report to the ministry forreview.
The board must also prepare a detailed report onwhat project categories require cost adjustments, along with thespecific reasons, Thang added.-VNA