The Hindu Business Line : Kandla box terminal bidding to close next month

KANDLA port has rescheduled the deadline for submission of technical and financial bids for its Rs 200-crore container terminal project to September 19.

After the disqualification of L&T recently, there are only three bidders — ABG Heavy Industries, Afcons and Gammon India — for the project, which has been shorn of its potential owing to a three-year delay in taking off.

Sources said one of the issues that is yet to be resolved pertains to the condition put by the port that the successful bidder should employ labour from the Dock Labour Board, which some bidders feel should be made voluntary instead of mandatory.

With the port now determined not to delay the project any further, it seems likely that the bidding process will be completed by the end of next month or early October.

Earlier, P&O India, which operates the Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT) at Jawaharlal Nehru port and the Chennai container terminal at Chennai port, had shown interest in the project. But prolonged negotiations between P&O and Kandla port over certain alternations in the Concession Agreement came a cropper, leading to the withdrawal of the container terminal operator about three years ago.

Kandla port has proposed to realign the container terminal project and have it constructed and operated on BOT basis on berths no. 11 and 12, which have a combined quay length of 545 mt and a draft of 12.5 mt alongside the berths. Berth no. 12, which is at present being developed, is expected to be ready for use by the end of October 2005.

As per the fresh plan drawn up by Kandla port, the selected bidder will be required to commission full-fledged container handling operations at berth no. 12, with at least two new Rail Mounted Quay Cranes (RMQCs), within 24 months of the signing of lease agreement. However, the selected party will have to commence container-handling operations at berth no. 11, which is ready for use, within eight months of the signing of the agreement, with adequate number of RMQCs and mobile harbour cranes as specified in the agreement.

Kandla port has projected a throughput of 1.5 lakh twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in the first year and 4.50 lakh TEUs in the fifth year of operation for the terminal. Port analysts are, however, sceptical of these projections, as the over three-year delay in the project implementation has clouded its financial prospects, with new terminals consolidating their presence in this region.