The Hindu Business Line : 12 cos in race for Mumbai box terminal project

AS the deadline for submission of RFQ document for the Rs 900-crore offshore container terminal project in Mumbai port came to a close, twelve parties have emerged in the race for the project.

With some of the big names in global port operations showing interest in the project, the Mumbai port has termed the response as "encouraging", especially in the light of the fact that its earlier invitation to take up the project had no takers. "We will now be short-listing the bidders based on our qualification norms and call for the financial bid soon," a Mumbai port official said.

The 12 parties in the race include foreign operators such as P & O Ports, Mitsui OSK of Japan, Dubai Ports Authority, Evergreen Marine of Taiwan, Maersk and Hutchison Port Holding, apart from Indian players such as L&T, United Liner Agency of the JM Baxi Group, Adani Ports, Gammon India and ABG Heavy Industries.

In fact, some 24 companies had actually picked up the tender document, after the port extended the deadline for submission of the RFQ document to March 11. With this response, the port is confident that 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, with the port attributing the poor response to uncertainty over the projected traffic potential and cargo evacuation constraints.

This time, the 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," the 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 of the channel to 15 m at the berth side will not be burdened on them. Further, we are willing to offer CFS space to the successful bidder if they want to set up their own CFS, apart from additional stacking pace," according to the official.

The port will be taking up the offshore container terminal project on BOT 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 being offered by the port include entitlement to the operator to collect stevedoring charges and to set down its own tariff subject to approval of TAMP, apart from the port ensuring adequate evacuation facilities.

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