September 06, 2008

Lanco Infra consortium wins bid for Vizhinjam project

BS reported that Hyderabad based Lanco Infratech Limited, in consortium with Pembinan Radzai Sdn Bhd of Malaysia, has won the bid for development of the USD 2 billion Vizhinjam International Container Port project in Kerala. The port project would be developed in 4 phases with an ultimate capacity of 6.5 million TEUs.

According to Mr Sanjay Joshi director (infrastructure) of Lanco Infratech Limited, the first phase would be completed in 60 months and the remaining 3 phases would be initiated after reaching the stipulated traffic levels. It will raise 70% of the required funds through debt and the remaining through equity. The financial closure would be two years down the line.

Mr Joshi said that "This is the first major port for Lanco Infratech.'' He added that it is currently building a captive coal terminal for its power project at Mangalore.

The Vizhinjam port, when developed would attract a fair share of the container transshipment traffic meant for India, currently handled by international ports at Colombo, Malaysia, Al Salalah and Singapore.

It may be recalled that Kerala government had called for bids in August 2007 through Vizhinjam International Seaport Limited on a 33 year concession basis. NCC Maytas, Videocon Gammon Sical, Apollo Enterprise DS Construction and Zoom Developers Portia Management Services were the other contenders for the project.