Vizhinjam Port - 14 Bids received

Kerala has received initial bids from 14 entities for developing a `2,620 crore port at Vizhinjam on the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram.

Those who have applied for qualification include GMR In- frastructure Ltd, GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd, Gam- mon Infrastructure Projects Ltd and Reliance Infrastruc- ture Ltd.

The board of Vizhinjam In- ternational Seaport Ltd ap- proved a plan on Monday to mandate State Bank of Travan- core as the lead banker and SBI Capital Markets Ltd as the lead arranger to raise `2,500 crore to fund the project through term loans and bond issues, according to Sanjeev Kaushik, secretary (ports), Kerala. Vizhinjam International Seaport is a special purpose company set up by the Kerala government to implement the project. The multi-purpose port at Vizhinjam will have a capacity to load 2.8 million standard containers and 1.8 million tonnes of other cargo a year.

The project is split into two parts. The first is for the de- sign, engineering, financing, development of superstructure such as buildings and cargo handling equipment at the port as well as the operation, maintenance and manage- ment of the terminals at an es- timated cost of `970 crore.

The successful bidder will have the conditional right of first refusal in the subsequent engineering, procurement and construction tender for the civil infrastructure construc- tion, which is estimated to cost another `1,650 crore.
Source - P Manoj, Live Mint