Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2005
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Jul 13, 2005 |
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Logistics
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Shipping Eleven bidders shortlisted for Mumbai port box terminal project Amit Mitra
Mumbai , July 12 IN the first phase of bidding for the Rs 900-crore container terminal project at Mumbai port, 11 out of the 12 bidders in the race, including global port terminal operators, have been short-listed. These bidders will now submit their RFP (Request For Proposal) bids, before the successful bidder is selected. The short-listed bidders include foreign operators such as P&O Ports, Dubai Ports Authority, Maersk, Evergreen Marine of Taiwan and Mistui OSK of Japan, apart from Indian players such as L&T, Adani Ports, United Liner Agency of the JM Baxi Group, Gammon India and ABG Heavy Industries. In fact, 24 companies had actually picked up the tender document, after the port extended the deadline for submitting the RFQ document to March 11. With this response, the port is confident the project will finally take off. Last year, when the port had invited bids for the project for the first time, there was not a single bid. The port attributed the poor response to the uncertainty over the projected traffic potential and cargo evacuation constraints. This was at a time when the attention of major players in the port operation sector was on the bidding process for the third container terminal at the neighbouring Jawaharlal Nehru Port. This time around, the Mumbai Port re-drafted the terms and conditions, incorporating some new incentives, to attract investors. Firstly, the port offered the BPS (Ballard Pier Estate) container berth to the successful bidder for the offshore terminal. "In other words, the successful bidder could start earning money from day one, as the BPS berth is at present operational. This berth can handle about two lakh TEUs. They (the successful bidder) will not have to wait till they develop the offshore berth," a senior port official said. Also, the port assured to improve the cargo evacuation facilities by providing better rail and road linkages. "We have also assured the bidders that the cost of deepening the channel to 15 metres at the berth side will not be saddled on them. Further, we are willing to offer container freight station space to the successful bidder if they want to set up their own CFS, apart from additional stacking space," according to the official. The port will take up the offshore container terminal project on a BOT (build, operation and transfer) basis in two phases. The first phase envisages construction of two berths with a capacity to handle 0.8 million TEUs, and the second phase involves construction of a third berth to take up the total capacity to 1.2 million TEUs. "We will give the first right of refusal to develop the third berth to the successful bidder for the first two berths," the port official said. The other benefits include entitlement to the operator to collect stevedoring charges and to set down its own tariff subject to the approval of the Tariff Authority for Major Ports, apart from ensuring adequate evacuation facilities.
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