Adani Ports lone bidder for Vizhinjam Deepsea port project

Kochi: Adani Ports is the only bidder for development of Kerala's much-awaited multi-crore rupee Vizhinjam International Deepwater Seaport project.

The last date for submitting the tender ended Friday.

Officials at the office of Minister for Ports K Babu confirmed that the Adani Group has bid for the project. It will be now considered by the Empowered Committee, chaired by the Chief Secretary and later sent to the Cabinet for approval.

The project had faced hurdles with no company submitting final bid for taking up the contract for its construction and operation when last date for bidding ended in February last.

Vizhinjam Seaport International Ltd (VSP), the Special Purpose Vehicle set up to implement the project, then extended the time for submission of tender by a further one month.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had held a pre-bid meeting with prospective companies, including the Adani Ports.

The contract is for building port superstructure, estimated to cost of Rs 6,000 crore and operate the port for a period of 40 years.

Though five major port operating companies qualified for submitting tenders after global tender floated by Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd. (VISL), only Essar Ports, Adani Ports and a consortium of Srei Infrastructure and OHL had submitted Expression of Interest for submitting tenders last month. But they also did not submit the final bid then.