Reported By:
| Edited By: Don Sebastian |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 29, 2018, 05:24 AM IST
The Kerala government has again rejected Mumbai-based Zoom Developers’ technical bid for the Rs 6,000 crore Vizhinjam International Container Trans-shipment Terminal.
A committee headed by the chief secretary Neela Gangadharan, appointed by chief minister V S Achuthanandan on April 29, rejected the bid after the consortium led by Zoom fell 10 points short of the stipulated 70 in the grading system Thursday.
The state cabinet is expected to take a decision next Wednesday.
Interestingly, Lanco Kondapalli Power Ltd, which was awarded the contract during the previous bidding — against which Zoom had moved Supreme Court — got disqualified because it could not provide bank guarantee within the deadline. L&T Ramboll was the technical consultant assessing the bids.
The project is sure to hit more legal hurdles as Zoom vows to approach the court again.
“The government has been taking a negative stand towards us all this while. The evaluation was partial. We have no other option but to approach the court,” Zoom chief executive Anil Thambi said.
The company has written to the government demanding to see the documents that worked against it.
The government gave Zoom another chance following an order of a division bench of the Supreme Court on April 13.
Zoom went to court after the government rejected the technical bid of Zoom in favour of a consortium led by Hyderabad-based Lanco Kondapalli Power Ltd.
Ports minister M Vijayakumar, who is in Delhi, said the government was open to inviting tender again, if the Supreme Court ruled so.
The port, 16 km south of the state capital, is a natural port nine nautical miles away from the international shipping route connecting Europe, West Asia and East Asia.
Motherships and super tankers that usually don’t deviate from international shipping channels could easily dock at Vizhinjam, with 18-20-metre natural depth just one nautical mile from the coast. All these with little or no dredging.
The port is intended to be developed on a build-operate-transfer basis.
