The construction of the 4th container terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port may be delayed further with the partners of the consortium, which was awarded the project, deciding to part ways.
The Rs 6,700 crore-project was awarded to a consortium of PSA International of Singapore and Mumbai-based ABG Ports.
The consortium partners have informed JNPT that PSA International alone will take up the project.
Confirming the development, a senior port official said that the port trust will take a decision after consulting the Shipping Ministry.
‘No legal issue'
There is no legal issue in allowing PSA to go it alone as the project was awarded on the basis of technical and financial strength of the Singapore firm and not on that of the Indian partner, he said.
According to documents filed at the time of bidding, PSA is the lead member of the consortium and will have management control of the proposed terminal with a 74 per cent stake.
PSA will invest over Rs 2,000 crore in the project.
There is no official comment on the reason for the break-up of the consortium.
PSA declined to comment on the development, while a senior ABG official said it was for PSA to respond.
The PSA-ABG team was awarded the project after it emerged the highest bidder offering to share 50.82 per cent of the annual revenue with the landlord port, making it the highest revenue share quoted by a private firm for a port project.
The project was awarded in September 2011. However, the consortium had not signed the concession agreement so far.
The signing ceremony scheduled in January was cancelled at the last minute as PSA refused to pay the stamp duty for registering the concession agreement. Subsequently, the matter has been referred for adjudication.
In fact, awarding the project itself had to be postponed by over a month after some trustees raised concern over the performance of ABG-PSA run container terminal at Kandla, Gujarat. The matter was later resolved.
There have been talks in the port circles that the consortium had overbid the JNPT project and has been trying to wriggle out of it under some pretext.
The terminal with a designed capacity to handle 4.8 million TEUs annually will, on completion, more than double the JN port's handling capacity.
Bid for another project
Interestingly, ABG is understood to have decided to bid for the 300-metre container handling facility also at JN Port.