Three groups shortlisted for India monorail - papers

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Three bidders have been shortlisted for a $1.6 billion monorail project in Mumbai, India, including India's Larsen & Toubro and Malaysian partner Scomi Engineering, newspapers said on Wednesday.

The other shortlisted bidders are a consortium led by Canada's Bombardier and a group including India's Reliance Energy and Japan's Hitachi group, the Star and Business Times newspapers of Malaysia said.

The three groups were among seven original bidders for the project in Mumbai, a city of about 15 million people, they said.

The monorail system would run through four corridors and carry about 10,000 passengers an hour during peak traffic to ease congestion in the city, the Star newspaper said.

Final bids must be submitted by May, with construction scheduled to start in June this year and continue for two years, the Business Times said. The contract would be let over 30 years on a build-operate-transfer basis, the dailies said.

Both newspapers quoted unnamed sources.