Exim News Service reported that the next board meeting of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust is expected to take the key decision of awarding the bid for JN Port’s over 4 million TEU capacity 4th container terminal.

Though the consortium of Singapore’s PSA and ABG had offered the highest revenue share (51%) to JNPT, the award of the project was deferred as some members of the board expressed reservations about the execution and operational capabilities of the consortium, which already operates facilities at Kandla and Kolkata.

As a result, a fact finding team was constituted to study the operations at existing facilities, especially the container terminal at Kandla. The team has reportedly submitted its report.

According to experts, these observations should have been made during the scrutiny of the technical and financial bids and not at the 11th hour like this, which reflects poorly on the country’s PPP bidding process for such projects.

With the ministry of shipping having given the go ahead to take the decision at the board level as per law, the coming week is crucial for this ambitious capacity augmentation project at the country’s No 1 box handling facility.

(Sourced from Exim News Service)