18 firms qualify to bid for Indian port project

Eighteen companies have qualified to bid for developing a port at Nargol in south Gujarat, reported The Economic Times.


HCC, GVK, GMR, Gammon, Adani, ABG and IL&FS are some of the major firms in the race to grab the rights to develop the US$391.63 million port, which would house three berths for containers and bulk cargo with an initial capacity of three to five million tonnes a year. The Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) had received requests for qualification from 22 players last year.


The Gujarat Maritime Board wants to sign the letter of intent by July, a state government official who was a part of the qualification process said.


"We have planned a pre-bid conference on May 18 before soliciting technical and financial bids. A state government-appointed committee will assess the technical and financial abilities of the interested players," he said.


The proposed port location, which has a draft up to 16m, is 140 km from Mumbai and 120 km from Surat. The developers are expecting to attract traffic from government-controlled Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust in Maharashtra to Nargol, which falls on the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor.
(Source:http://www.cargonewsasia.com)