Site clearance and material supply difficulties affect progress of North-South Expressway project

A section of the North-South Expressway in the second phase of the project is under construction. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Transport has urged investors and contractors to focus on resolving bottlenecks related to land clearance and material supply, aiming to accelerate progress of the second phase of the North-South expressway project.

Currently, 95.5 per cent of the designated land area for component projects in the 2021-2025 period has been successfully acquired. 

The construction is in progress and covers around 669km out of the total over 721km, or 92.8 per cent, according to Lê Quyết Tiến, director of the Investment Management Department, Ministry of Transport.

He affirmed that recommendations have been submitted to the Minister of Transport regarding documents sent to provincial People’s Committees, urging the acceleration of land clearance progress and the construction of resettlement areas. 

However, Tiến noted that implementation of the remaining workload is still lagging.

After a year of construction, the progress of the 12 component projects has reached over 21 per cent of the contract value, approximately VNĐ20.88 trillion (US$846.2 million).

Among them, four sub-projects with good progress have reached over 25 per cent of the contract value, including Vũng Áng-Bùng, Bùng-Vạn Ninh, Chí Thạnh-Vân Phong and Vân Phong-Nha Trang. 

Two sub-projects that are behind the schedule are Hàm Nghi-Vũng Áng and Quảng Ngãi-Hoài Nhơn.

As the investor of the Quảng Ngãi-Hoài Nhơn Expressway sub-project, Lê Thắng, director of Project Management Board 2, explained that the project’s progress has not met expectations, largely due to challenges in land clearance and unfavourable weather conditions, with Quảng Ngãi and Bình Định still experiencing rain.

These challenges have resulted in the project’s construction progress reaching only about 15 per cent so far, Thắng said.

At the Vũng Áng-Bùng Expressway sub-project with a length of 55km, Project Management Board 6 committed to studying solutions and applying technical measures to address the weak soil foundation on 5km of the route, aiming for early traffic opening by June 30, 2025.

Some component projects are facing challenges due to a shortage of land and sand for expressway construction. 

In the Cần Thơ-Cà Mau Expressway sub-project, the demand for sand is approximately 90,000 cu.m a day, but the current daily extraction capacity for the project is only 19,000 cu.m. 

Similarly, in component projects from Hà Tĩnh to Khánh Hòa, there is also a shortage of soil and sand. 

The contractors’ capacity to extract land and sand meets only 68-76 per cent of the demand.

At a progress evaluation meeting for expressway projects on Monday, minister of transport Nguyễn Văn Thắng urged contractors to urgently complete the procedures for exploiting the proposed licensed mines for soil and sand.

Project management boards were required to work closely with local authorities to assess the construction material needs of contractors and report promptly to the relevant authorities. — VNS