For building a Rs 1,270 crore container loading facility the Ennore Port in Tamil Nadu received 11 initial bids from private groups. The deadline for submitting the bids ended on July 25. Ennore Port is IndiaÂ’s only Union government-controlled port that is run as a company; the others operate as trusts. The new terminal will have a capacity to load 1.4 million standard containers a year from a berth length of 730 metre.
However, the winning bidder has the flexibility to build the 730 m berth in two phases, starting with a berth length of 400m that can handle 8,00,000 standard containers a year costing Rs 750 crore and scale it up to 730 m to load 1.4 million standard containers a year over a period of three to four years, the port said.
The terminal is a part of the shipping ministry target to award 30 port projects by March 2014, involving a combined private investment of Rs 24,633 crore, which will add 288.48 million tonnes of cargo-handling capacity at the ports owned by the Union government.
Those that have applied are Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd; PSA Chennai Investments Pte Ltd; APM Terminals Management BV; Hindustan Ports Pvt. Ltd (the Indian arm of DubaiÂ’s DP World Ltd); Essar Ports Ltd; Sterlite Ports Ltd; L&T Infrastructure Development Projects Ltd; Gammon Infrastructure Projects Ltd; consortium of Bollore Africa Logistics and Megalift Material Handling Pvt. Ltd; consortium of Indian Molasses Co. Ltd and SEW Infrastructure Ltd; consortium of Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. Ltd and Concast Infratech Ltd, said an Ennore Port spokesman.
The container terminal was slated to open by the end of the year if an earlier contract had gone through.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.