Concor looks for an eastern beachhead

Container Corporation of India (Concor), which recently entered the port operations business, is looking at marking its presence on the eastern coast.

It is considering bidding for container terminals in Chennai and Ennore on the east coast.

Concor has already entered into a joint venture arrangement with Maersk for operating the fourth container terminal at Jawahar Lal Nehru Port (JNPT).

Vallarpadam at Kochi is the other terminal that Concor would be operating in a joint venture with Dubai Ports Ltd. Both these ports are located on the west coast.

"We have a choice between Chennai and the nearby Ennore port. We are at present finalising joint venture partners for bidding for either of the projects,' Rakesh Mehrotra, Concor managing director told Business Standard

He added the Concor was considering setting up a Rail Transfer Facility at Ennore,where container handling facility is set up outside the port. Concor has a similar facility at JNPT, Mehrotra added.

In the Rail Transfer Facility, rather than clogging the port, the loading an d unloading occurs outside the port.

He said that even though Ennore at present handles coal and iron ore, it has plans to start handling containers also.

"We are examining the viability of setting up of such a facility in terms of the expected container traffic. The proposal is still at an initial stage,' he said.

The government recently cleared the proposal for setting up a container terminal at Chennai on Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis at a cost of Rs. 491.76 crores with a capacity of 2 million twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers.

Of the total cost, Chennai Port will contribute around Rs. 100 crores and the BOT (Build Operate and Transfer) operator the balance.

The port has already issued request for qualification (RFQ) documents.

Ennore has also planned a container terminal at a cost of about Rs 400 crore with a capacity of about 6 million TEUs.

This terminal would also be on Build Operate and Transfer basis. The port is expected to come out with its RFQ documents soon.