PETALING JAYA, July 27 — Putrajaya has pulled the plug on the East Integrated Transport Terminal (EITT) at Gombak, an automobile magazine has reported, sending the multimillion ringgit public project aimed to ease the traffic gridlock into the city into oblivion.

Citing anonymous sources linked to the project, Cars, Bikes & Trucks (CBT) reported that the proposed transport hub project, located on a whopping 13.35-hectare piece of land near the Gombak light rail transit (LRT) station and the Middle Ring Road 2 (MRR2), has finally been terminated despite repeated efforts to bring it to life after more than a decade on ice.

“The project made no progress for quite a while and it is only viable for the government to pull the plug on the project due to long outstanding issues,” the magazine quoted an unnamed government official as saying.

According to the official, among the issues that led to the government’s decision to axe the project were Selangor’s hesitation to swap a Malay reserve land at the site with the federal government; traffic dispersal at the highly-congested MRR2 and questions over development model from the builder and concessionaire.

The EITT, mooted over a decade ago, had stalled in 2001 but was reported to have been jumpstarted again in June 2010 under the National Key Result Area (NKRA) initiative introduced after Datuk Seri Najib Razak took office.

“This EITT project in Gombak is very important as it will divert some 780 buses from the north and east from entering the city centre,” then Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat was reported as saying by state news wire Bernama in a news conference on April 13, 2010.

He said the construction cost of the terminal, financed under the Private Financing Initiative, was estimated to be RM200 million.

Ong said the EITT, with a capacity of 15,000 users daily, would also have facilities for taxis and stage buses, car parks to encourage the public to ‘park and ride’, covered walkways, a surau and a commercial centre.

The first phase was to be ready by March 2011, and fully-completed in the middle of last year.

In March last year, construction firm Zelan Bhd announced its Terminal Bersepadu Gombak Sdn Bhd (TEGAS) subsidiary, had won a RM307 million concession from Putrajaya to undertake the development of the EITT, which by then had come to be called the GITT.

In a statement to Bursa Malaysia on March 15, 2012, Zelan said the concession, on a build-lease-manage-operate-transfer basis by way of public-private-partnership, was for 25 years and three months from the construction commencement date.

“The project will cost approximately RM307.37 million, of which RM260.141 million will be financed by Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Bhd under the Bai’ Istana’ facilities,” it said.

The project comprised a seven-storey terminal complex and related facilities, it said.

But CBT reported yesterday that transport ministry officials have been working with a Public-Private Partnership unit in the Prime Minister’s Department to resuscitate the dormant project for the past one month, without success.

Citing another unnamed official close to the project, the magazine reported that the government was forced to drop the transport hub after it ran out of time.

“The government can’t afford to wait any longer since there is a certain target to achieve under the NKRA to improve the public transport,” the official was quoted as saying.

The government will also be closing the existing East-bound operations at Hentian Putra as part of its goals under the transport NKRA, which will then be run at the Tasik Selatan ITT by middle of next year, CBT reported, but did not indicate when the closure would take place.