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

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• The Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Vinod Mathew

Mumbai , Oct. 10

THE Rs 350-crore Ennore Port coal terminal has hit a legal speed-breaker. The Madras High Court has ruled that South Indian Corporation Ltd, a consortium leader that was disqualified by Ennore Port in May 2003 from bidding for the 8-million tonnes (mt) a year terminal, be allowed to join the bidding process again.

Three months after South India Corporation (Agencies) Ltd (A C Muthiah Group), Adani Ports and Leighton Contractors, Singapore made bids for building the coal terminal in July 2005, the Court order on September 13 is expected to cause fresh delays in the port privatisation process.

Now, Ennore Port has two options — a) go in appeal against the Court order; b) rework the bidding process all over again, either by way of inducting SICL into the panel of short-listed bidders or go for a fresh bidding. Either way, the project will be pushed back by almost a year, it is feared.

"The project stands to lose precious time, as the project implementation time itself is 30 months. For that clock to start ticking, all procedural issues need to be sorted out. What one is faced with at Ennore Port is a huge time overrun and by reflection, a setback for port privatisation, per se," said an analyst tracking the port sector.

When contacted, an Ennore Port official who was unwilling to go on record said that the matter was now getting back on track once again and `unnecessary focus' on the process will further delay the project. He refused to comment whether the port would appeal against the High Court order.

SICL filed two writ petitions — in August 2004, a month after the short-listed three submitted their bids. If this was against the qualification process, SICL filed a second writ petition in May 2005, against all the bidders.

The Single Judge order of Madras High Court had ruled that the May-June 2003 communique of Ennore Port disqualifying the bid of SICL be set aside.

The High Court ruled that it was not necessary that SICL itself met these parameters but it was sufficient that its consortium partner Portia Management Services Ltd, UK did so.

While SICL was the leading partner in the consortium with a 36 per cent stake, the UK company and Vizag-based Navyuga Engineering Company Ltd had 32 per cent each.

The grounds on which SICL got disqualified was that it did not meet the minimum cargo handling capacity of 2 mt a year of dry cargo in any of the three preceding years (implemented as an equity holder with not less than a 26 per cent stake in an infrastructure project costing not less than Rs 300 crore.)

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Marico arm buys toilet soap brand in Bangladesh

Copyright © 2005, 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