The port authority that runs India’s biggest state-owned port by cargo handled and the nation’s second largest overall, floated a fresh tender on 30 June to build the multipurpose cargo (other than container/liquid) berth off Tuna Tekra outside Kandla Creek on public-private-partnership (PPP) mode for 30 years.
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ), JSW Infrastructure Ltd, Navayuga Engineering Co Ltd and QTerminals L.L.C had applied on the tender floated by Deendayal Port Authority last year.
Subsequently, Navayuga Engineering and QTerminals backed out while APSEZ was not keen on pursuing the project in the wake of the allegations made by Hinderburg Research on the group.
While JSW Infrastructure was keen on the tender, it sought some key changes to the tender conditions that were not acceptable to the port authority. Besides, the possibility of a ‘single bid’ scenario forced the port authority to scrap the tender and re-bid the project, sources said.
Kandla port serves the Northern India hinterland, including the land-locked states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat.
The present optimal handling capacity of the existing dry cargo berths at Kandla, including barge jetties at bunder basin, Tuna and IFFCO Barge Jetty (excluding containers), is 59.96 mt.
In FY23, the dry cargo berths handled 41.65 mt (excluding containerized cargo).
The port authority is seeking to build additional facilities to cater to the expected recovery in economic growth of the country, steadily growing dry cargo traffic and over-utilized dry cargo handling infrastructure at Kandla Port, a port official said.
The gap between the projected traffic and allocated traffic has been estimated based on the traffic forecast from FY 2021 to FY 2030. The projected traffic gap by the year 2026 is 2.85 mt and by 2030 is 27.49 mt.
The planned facility will be designed to handle multipurpose cargo such as food grains, fertilizers, coal, ores and minerals, steel cargo etc.
Kandla port currently has 16 cargo berths.
The new berth will be built to handle ships of up to 100,000 DWT and up to 15 metres draft.
