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Amit Mitra

Mumbai , Nov. 13

APART from the Bombay Dyeing group, the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) is trying to rope in Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) to join its consortium as the third equity partner to bid for the Rs 900-crore third container terminal project at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

Sources said PSA officials, who are at present camping here, are in the advanced stages of negotiations with IDFC for picking up a five per cent stake in the PSA-led consortium.

With its existing partner, ABG Heavy Industries, which has a five per cent stake in the consortium, having decided to pull out, the group will have PSA as the leading partner with 80 per cent share and the Bombay Dyeing group and IDFC as the other two partners with 15 per cent and five per cent stake, respectively.

Sources close to ABG Heavy said the company decided to pull out of the consortium to concentrate on other port development projects in India. PSA and ABG are likely to sign a MoU in a day or two to negate the existing agreement between them.

According to the sources, Mr Nusli Wadia of the Bombay Dyeing group had detailed negotiations with the PSA authorities during the last two days. The three parties are likely to form a special purpose vehicle to bid for the project in the next three to four days. The textile major's decision to foray into the ports sector has been prompted by the fact that the third container terminal project has business potential, as the port has been struggling to brook the surge in traffic and was forced to divert some traffic to other ports.

"About five lakh TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of incremental container cargo that are likely to be available for movement through the port in the current fiscal will have to find alternative gateways to move in or out of India, as both the JNPT and the Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal will not be able to take this extra load. Thus, the third terminal has a ready market waiting," an industry analyst said.

The P&O-operated Nhava Sheva terminal was designed to handle six lakh TEUs of cargo only in the 16th year of operation. But due to a surge in container traffic, it handled 3.43 lakh TEUs in its first year of operation (1999-2000), which increased to 9.43 lakh TEUs in 2001-02 and 1.3 million TEUs last fiscal, when the port handled 7.28 lakh TEUs.

The minimum throughput that has to guaranteed by the successful bidder for the third terminal envisages a flow of 1.3-lakh TEUs in the first year, 3.5-lakh TEUs in the second, 7.35-lakh TEUs in the fourth and 1.2-million TEUs in the sixth year of operation.

"Given the congestion and traffic flow trend at the JNPT, the third terminal will hardly require any marketing efforts to attract traffic. It is this factor that has attracted global port players to this project," the industry analyst pointed out.

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