Zoom Developers await review of Vizhinjam bid

July 1, 2009: Over a week after a wave of rumours and speculation lashed the prospects of the Rs 5,340-crore Vizhinjam container transshipment terminal, Mumbai-based Zoom Developers is still awaiting results of the re-evaluation of the company's bid by a committee set up by the state.

"We have received no intimation from the authorities on the status of our bid that was being re-evaluated by a committee. We are awaiting to know how we have scored in the evaluation so that we can proceed with further steps," said Zoom Developers chief executive officer Anil Thampy.

The project had plunged into uncertainty when Lanco Kondapalli Power, which had originally won the tender last year, decided to withdraw from the project citing undue delay on the part of the authorities to take a final decision on the issue, and there was speculation that Zoom Developers' bid had been rejected by the evaluation committee.

Putting on record Lanco's disillusionment with the procedural delays, company director V Sreenivas said, "Protracted litigations and an atmosphere vitiated by baseless speculations has altered out due diligence perspectives on the project."

Last week, both the ruling and opposition fronts in the state assembly had come together in a rare act of cooperation, suggesting that they should both work together to ensure that the project is realised.

Among the suggestions that have come up are to ask the Centre to take the initiative in setting up the port and getting NRIs to fund the project but the current state of affairs points to an uphill task for the state government to get the project back on track, perhaps through an international tender all over again.

The Vizhinjam project - envisaged in the public-private partnership mode on build-operate-transfer basis - was expected to have a Rs 2,400 crore outlay in its first phase. The proposed port has the advantage of a 17-metre natural draft and the project has the potential to generate 5,000 direct jobs and 1.50 lakh indirect jobs.

Source: The Economic Times