• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Sajeev Kumar. V

Kochi , Dec. 16

THE Kochi Port and the Union Government are jointly working on re-engineering the project of development of an International Container Transhipment Terminal (ICTT) in the port and redefining the concession agreement, to ensure that this project would come to fruition when put to tender shortly.

Speaking to Business Line, the Deputy Chairman of the port, Mr A. Janardhana Rao said that the management has taken up a soil study in the proposed site at Vallarpadam as well as a traffic update study to allay the fears of investors.

The inherent risks of ICTT being a green field project and the poor soil conditions were among the major apprehensions expressed by the prospective bidders at the interactive meetings held earlier.

The port has entrusted the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai to conduct a detailed soil study to assess the soil strength and settlement aspects of the area, including ways and means to do pre-consolidation before development at Vallarpadam is taken up, he said.

One of the major apprehensions of investors is that the Vallarpadam area mainly being of soft clay will have considerable settlement, entailing heavy investment for soil consolidation to withstand the heavy loads from container stacking and machineries deployed for handling containers.

The port is also thinking of developing the ICTT at nearby Puthuvypeen, if soil conditions there are found to be better than at Vallarpadam and so the study would cover the Puthuvypeen area also. In the re-tendering, the bidders would be given the option to locate the project at Vallarpadam or any other suitable location, depending on the study results, he added. For the traffic update study, Mr Rao said the Delhi-based Consulting Engineering Services have been mandated for the assignment.

The terms of reference include the assessment of traffic potential and five yearly traffic projections spanning a period of 30 years and also the study of shipping scenario and fixing of the design vessel.

The studies are already underway and the report would be ready by mid February, he said.

According to the Deputy Chairman, the detailed feasibility reports covering various aspects of ICTT was originally prepared in 1991 and later updated, in 1998. Over the years, lots of changes have taken place in the port and shipping scenario including the capacity addition of the existing ports, commissioning of new ports and the drastic change in the ship size with a considerable presence of 8,000 plus TEUs capacity vessels.

Considering the above facts, the 1998 report as such does not present a realistic picture and is therefore not capable of allaying the fears of the investors and so the port has taken up a fresh updating of the traffic and shipping study for ICTT, he said.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
BA changes London-Delhi flight schedule

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line