KUALA LUMPUR: Scomi Engineering Bhd, the engineering arm of Scomi Group, is participating in the bidding process for three monorail projects in India that will add an additional order book value of up to RM1 billion to the company.

Scomi Engineering Chief Executive Officer Kanesan Veluppillai said the bidding process for the projects, namely Kerala, Chennai and Delhi Monorail, will be over in the next few months and the company hoped to know the outcome by this quarter and next quarter.

"We will do it (monorail construction) as a consortium just like the Mumbai Monorail project.

Our portion will be about RM1 billion maximum (for three projects)," he told Bernama in an interview recently.

According to industry analyst, the projects in Kerala and New Delhi involve a total of 33 km of rail lines while in Chennai, India's fifth most populous state, the monorail project would involve a 57.1 km line.

Meanwhile, on the Mumbai Monorail Line 1 project, he said the project would commence its maiden commercial operation, consisting nine kilometres line, on Sept 15 as planned.

He said the company has already deployed 10 monorail cars to India, of which nine is currently undergoing integrated testing.

"The progress is very good. We have completed critical testing as of June 1 and the commercial operation will go on as planned on Sept 15.

"We are doing testing in the worst possible condition. It is the monsoon season now and our cars are being put through a very severe test under this condition," he said.

Scomi bagged the RM1.85 billion Mumbai Monorail project in 2008 in joint venture with India's Larsen and Toubro Ltd.

The Mumbai job was the first monorail project for Scomi outside Malaysia before it bagged two monorail jobs in Brazil worth a combined RM5.6 billion three years later. -- BERNAMA