Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has proposed to increase investment for the Ben Thanh-Tham Luong metro project and delay its completion date to 2024.

Line 2 links Ben Thanh station in District 1 to Tham Luong station in District 12 in the suburbs

The HCM City Urban Railway Management Board said that they had to adjust the design. The representative of Asia Development Bank said that the ground clearance and bidding processes had also been too time-consuming, causing the delay.

Vice Chairman of HCM City People's Committee Tran Vinh Tuyen blamed the complicated procedures as they had to ask prime ministerial permissions for the bidding problems.

The total investment for the section will be increased from USD1.37bn to USD2.17bn. HCM City People's Committee said they had received opinions from related departments about the project, analysed and compared their investment with other urban railway projects in the region.

Every 1km of Ben Thanh-Tham Luong metro line has an investment of USD135m. This is considered normal as the regional urban railway investment for every 1km ranges from USD97m to USD345m.

The project was expected to be completed in 2018. However, the deadline was pushed to 2020 and the city authorities are proposing to postpone to 2024. HCM City People's Committee said they had discussed the deadline with the sponsors and gained approval from the ministries.

The Ben Thanh-Tham Luong metro line is 11.2km long and runs through District 1, 3, 10, 12, Tan Binh and Tan Phu. Of which 9.2km are underground. The metro line will have nine underground stations, one elevated station and one depot.  

dtinews