The Hindu Business Line : Vizag port cancels tender for unloaders

THE Vizag port has decided to cancel the tender for supply and maintenance of two 33-tonne capacity rail mounted ship unloaders, with the bids submitted by two Mumbai-based companies, ABG Heavy Industries Ltd and Dewanchand Ramasaran, not meeting the expectations of the port authorities.

Authoritative sources told Business Line that the port has put the proposal on hold, deciding to invite fresh global tenders "at an appropriate time".

This is the second time the port is cancelling the tender for supply of the unloaders, which were to have been deployed at the General Cargo Berth (GCB) on BOT basis. In the first instance, five companies — ABG Heavy Industries, Dewanchand Ramasaran, the Kolkata-based TRF Ltd, the Chennai-based South India Corporation Ltd and South India Corporation Agencies — had participated. But, as only one of these companies, ABGHL, submitted the technical bid, the port decided to cancel the tender and go in for fresh bids.

According to sources, the two Mumbai-based companies had again participated in the second round of tendering earlier this year. However, the port stipulated some additional conditions subsequently, which were rejected by the two companies. The conditions included the total availability of the unloaders should be 85 per cent of the time on monthly basis and levy of penalty on hourly basis in the event of the unloaders breaking down when the ship is alongside the GCB.

Replying to these conditions, ABGHL wanted the usage of the GCB to be given exclusively to the BOT operator, apart from deleting the penalty clause and introduction of the condition that all vessels that called at the GCB should be required to make use of the unloaders and pay the handling charges as approved by TAMP.

With the port refusing to comply with these conditions as "these are at variance to the VPT stipulations that were incorporated in the RFP document", the "conditional offer" of ABGHL was recently rejected.

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