Contracts for three of four jetties could not be awarded; ball back in government’s court.
Kandla Port Trust's bid to get four new dry cargo jetties built expeditiously has received a serious setback.
Of the ten shortlisted parties, only three submitted their price bids. And the bids of two of these parties were found to be very low when the price bids were opened in the second week of the current month. Since one party could be given work for only one dry cargo jetty, the port authorities awarded work contract for one jetty to the highest bidder and approached its administrative ministry for guidelines in the case of the remaining three dry cargo berths.
Sources told DNA that the port trust was empowered to the settle the matter at its own level, with no further reference to the ministry. But it chose to refer the matter to the ministry for two reasons: one, the guidelines for awarding BOT (build, operate and transfer) contracts were vague or silent on some vital points; and two, to avert any CBI probe later on the charge of corruption in the contract. Incidentally, almost all heads of departments (HoDs) and key officers have faced CBI raids in the past.
These sources said that under BOT, the port trust had no role to play in construction and running of the jetties. KPT was just supposed to get a share in the revenue of the berth operator. The highest bidder had proposed to give KPT a share of 31.62 % of the total revenue.
A top KPT official had told
DNA soon after the opening of the price bids early this month that they would enter into negotiation with the two parties to raise their price bids. But this was not done for the looming fear of the CBI. "Even if the revenue share is raised to, say 25%, in negotiation, there would still be suspicion of corruption. Also, the BOT guidelines are silent on the issue of negotiation," a senior official told this paper on Tuesday.
Under the circumstances, three alternatives have been proposed: seeking revised price bids from the govt-approved bidders, Kandla Port Trust itself constructing the three berth jetties as it had done in the past, or re-launching pre-qualification process for the three jetties.
Sources said that only first two options could bring immediate results. The third option, on the other hand, would mean going back to square one as it would involve a long re-tendering process. It was because of frequent re-tendering process that the four jetties, planned more than five years ago, had not seen any material progress.
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