The Kandla Port Trust board decided to go ahead with its four-year-old project to build four dry cargo jetties under PPP scheme.
The Kandla Port Trust (KPT) board, at its special meeting held here on Wednesday, decided to go ahead with its four-year-old project to build four dry cargo jetties under PPP scheme at a cost of Rs800 crore.
At the meeting, the board revoked its earlier decision to allow allotment of more than one jetty to one party. Now, work of only one jetty would be allotted to one party, as was suggested by the Union shipping ministry. The board, by implication, overruled the ministry's view on the issue of reduction of draft in front of the jetties from 14 metres to 13 metres and decided to go ahead with draft of 13 metres as of now. On the issue of dropping Adanis as a bidder, it was decided to retain them as the point of objection raised earlier was considered by legal experts not to have any material impact on the matter.
Union shipping ministry's view had been communicated to the port in response to submission of the board's resolution adopted at a meeting held earlier this month. At that time, some trustees had objected to changes being made in the project approved earlier by the board and the Union government. The four non-government trustees stuck to their guns even in the board's Wednesday meeting.
Interestingly, Wednesday's meeting was attended only by these four trustees, excluding the chairman and the deputy chairman of the port who are trustees by virtue of their office.
These trustees wanted their objections raised in the earlier meeting to be incorporated in its minutes. Mohan Aswani, president of Kandla Port Karmachari Sangh and additional general secretary of Indian National Ports and Dock Workers Federation, said on Thursday that since the project proposal had become complicated due to changes made over the years, the best way out would be to construct these jetties by the port's own funds of over Rs2000 crore.
He said the jetties, after construction, could be given to private parties for running, so that high productivity could be maintained at the port.
On the issue of the draft in front of the proposed four jetties being reduced from 14 metres to 13, the trustees refused to buy the port management's contention that cost was the factor behind it. Aswani said that though the cost of dredging for 14 metre draft was mentioned at Rs320 crore, the management failed to explain how much the cost would go down in case of reduction.
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