Hutchison, Taiwan firm may get nod to bid for Mumbai Port project

The Centre is likely to accord security clearance to the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings and Taiwan-based Evergreen Marine Corporation to bid for the Rs 1,200 crore offshore container terminal project of the Mumbai Port Trust.

Security clearance for the two firms was pending before the Indian intelligence agencies, while the other nine bidders had got the go-ahead.

Sources in the know said the clearance was delayed as the security agencies had raised the issue of a possible threat to the country's critical infrastructure given the two firms' Chinese connections.

"The government is likely to give the clearance to these companies next week and has asked the Mumbai Port to extend the deadline of submitting the request for proposal from November 28 to December 15," a source said. The deadline extension would give sufficient time to these companies to submit their technical and financial bids.

Mumbai Port Trust secretary P Mohana Chandran declined to comment on the issue but said the "the Mumbai Port has extended the deadline to December 15." Mumbai Port's senior most labour trustee S R Kulkarni said the government should keep in view the nation's interest while granting security clearance to Chinese firms considering the naval installations near to the port.

"Interestingly, the government had earlier cancelled the Mumbai Port's channel dredging contract to China Harbour & Engineering Company during the tenure of the then defence minister George Fernandes, citing Chinese links. The company had challenged the decision and the case is into arbitration," Kulkarni added.

The Mumbai Port had shortlisted Larsen & Toubro, Hutchison Port, Evergreen Marine, Mitsui OSK Lines, P&O Ports, United Liner Agencies India, Gammon India, ABG Heavy Industries, Dubai Ports International, AP Moller Finance SA and Adani Exports.

Larsen has teamed up with Hutchison Port to bid for the project. Even though Hutchison is the management contractor for the project, a security clearance is needed to participate in the project, the source said.

According to Evergreen Marine, the company would bid for the project alone. "As we have the experience of terminal handling operations, we plan to bid as single party," a company executive said. He, however, declined to comment on the security clearance issue.

Interestingly, Evergreen had earlier got security clearances for container terminal projects at Mumbai Port, Kochi Port and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust on the grounds that it was not a Chinese firm.

Meanwhile, United Liner Agencies has teamed up with Germany's HHLA Container Terminal and Gammon India has tied up with Italian company Dragados SPL and Gammon Infrastructure Project Ltd for bidding the Mumbai Port project. ABG Heavy Industries has joined hands with IL&FS, while Adani Exports is bidding with Adani Port Infrastructure.