The Kochi port, set to become the country's transshipment hub, has proposed that it should be converted into a special economic zone (SEZ) to realise its full potential.
The proposal, which is at present being examined by the ministry of ports and shipping, would be forwarded to the commerce ministry soon, official sources told Business Standard.
The government is expected to call the tenders for a container terminal at Kochi next week, which would come up on Vallarpadam island close to the existing port on Wellington Island. The Cochin Port Trust (CPT) has proposed that the Kerala government should set up an industrial area on the other islands in the area -- Bolgati, Vypeen and Puthuvypeen -- and link the entire area through bridges and roads.
As per the proposal, the five million tonne per annum Vallarpadam container terminal, which would come up as a private sector project, and the industrial zone on the other islands would be declared an SEZ, while the main port could be included at a later date, the sources said. The other private container terminal -- Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT) at Jawaharlal Nehru Port in Mumbai has a capacity of 7.8 million tonne.
If approved, the Kochi SEZ would be the first such integrated zone with an industrial park and a full-fledged port in a single complex in the country, the official said, adding other zones such as Kandla, Paradeep, Positra and Dronagiri are distinct from their associated ports.
Meanwhile, the ministry of ports and shipping would start the rebidding process for Vallarpadam container terminal next time by calling fresh bids. In the earlier round, P&O Ports had emerged as the lone bidder for the project in May 1998 and the ministry had rejected the bid in the absence of any clear guidelines for private sector participation in the ports sector.
Following a new model proposed by Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) for such projects, the government decided to call fresh tenders for the long pending Vallarpadam project on BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) basis.
