Chennai Port Trust (CPT) has rejected a bid by Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone (MPSEZ) for its Rs 3,700-crore mega container terminal project in this metropolis. Reason: the revenue share offer of five per cent was “too low”, according to CPT.
The port is planning a re-bid for the deepwater container terminal, the country’s first, to give another opportunity for those companies which participated in the project’s request for qualification stage, according to a senior CPT official on Thursday.
He said the five per cent revenue share offer by the Adani Group-led Navi Mundra Port, the sole bidder for the project, “is the lowest compared to similar projects in the port sector”.
Substantiating, the official cited examples. The revenue share offered in Mumbai’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust was 51 per cent, while the figure was 33 at Ennore Port here, even as the project has not been developed fully. (In the case of Ennore port, some 25 km north of this city, a consortium led by the London-based Eredene Group was the lone bidder for its container terminal project.)
As for proposed project with CPT, companies such as Dubai-based DP World, Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) and Larsen & Toubro were the bidders at the start, but all of them withdrew later. PSA could not participate due to the ‘monopoly’ clause (the company got the second container terminal and, hence, cannot immediately bid for a similar project in the same port), while L&T is building a major shipyard near Ennore, the CPT official told Business Standard.
The mega container terminal project is to be developed north of the existing Bharathi Dock inside the Chennai Port. The berth can handle ultra-large container ships of over 15,000 20-foot equivalent unit capacity and a length of 400 metre.
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The project is proposed on a BOT (build, own and transfer) basis with cost of dredging, floating crafts and navigational aids, costing Rs 561 crore, to be borne by the CPT.
While the private investor will invest on berth and breakwater construction, reclamation of backup area, handling equipment and other landside infrastructure will cost Rs 3,125 crore.