Union minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy may be busy organising the ensuing Bengal assembly Polls, but he has ensured that the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) moves closer to launching its transloading facilities at Konica sandheads despite stiff opposition from neighbouring Orissa.
KoPT has called a pre-application meeting on Tuesday. A KoPT official told FE that following the request for qualification (RFQ), which was floated in the first week of February, KoPT has now called a pre-application meeting, where interested bidders will participate.
This meeting will clarify about the project and respond to queries of interested parties, while also getting a feel whether the tender for transloading will be successful once floated.
However, all parties attending the meeting might not be potential bidders but the meeting can gauge the interest generated about the project, the official said. The pre-application meeting was scheduled on March 11 but for some unaviodable circumstances, it had to be postponed till March 29, the official said.
In fact, Dhamra port authorities along with the Orissa government objected to KoPT’s R290-crore transloading plan at the Konica Sandheads on the plea that it was intruding within the territorial limit of the Dhamra port.
Though the shipping ministry and the law ministry cleared KoPT’s proposal of putting up a transloading facility at the Konica Sandheads through a notification, after a tripartite meeting of the Union shipping ministry, representatives of the Orissa government along with Dhamra Port Authorities and KoPT chairman on March 2, the ministry asked KoPT to hold back the tender process.