Govt To Float Global Tenders To Select New Majority Partner
MMTC Ltd, principal promoter of the joint sector project to develop Gopalpur into a major port, is out of the venture, Orissa Chief Minister J B Patnaik said here yesterday.
Patnaik said MMTCs exclusion was mainly due to the reluctance of the Union commerce ministry to allow the public sector undertaking to invest in the venture.
He said that during talks in New Delhi recently, commerce minister B B Ramaiah had opposed MMTCs involvement in the project on the ground that it was a trading company and may not be able to safeguard its investment in a field in which it had no experience.
Patnaik said the majority partner for the Gopalpur port project will now be selected through international bidding. Several foreign companies, including some from Australia, Singapore and Thailand, have already shown interest in the project, he said.
MMTC had signed the MoU with the Orissa government last year to develop Gopalpur, a minor port now, into a major port in the joint sector. According to the agreement, MMTC was to be the principal promoter in the project. The state governments contribution to the investment was to be limited to the assets already created for the minor port and the value of the land to be acquired for the expansion.
A number of other companies such as Tata Steel, L&T, BPCL and Steel Authority of India (SAIL), the prospective beneficiaries of the port facility, had also agreed to take up small stakes in the venture.
MMTC was also on the look out for a foreign partner for both technical and financial collaboration.
MMTC had worked out a detailed project report (DPR) for the venture by the end of last year.
As per the DPR, the first phase of the port, with a handling capacity of 36 million tonnes, was to be completed at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore by the year 2000, coinciding with the commissioning of first modules of the shore-based mega steel projects of Tisco and L&T at Gopalpur.
While the ultimate capacities of these two export-oriented steel projects are 10 million tonnes and six million tonnes respectively, the ultimate cargo handling capacity planned for Gopalpur port was 78 million tonnes.
Declining to discuss the impact of MMTCs exclusion from the project, Patnaik said some crucial things such as the selection of a foreign partner and sourcing finances, which had got tied down because of the involvement of MMTC, would now move faster.
Sources said the projects minority partners, including Tisco, L&T, BPCL and SAIL will stay with it despite MMTCs ouster. They also pointed out that in the present circumstances, the government was keen on a foreign majority partner, possibly from the south east Asian nations, to develop the port under build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) scheme.
The Chief Minister also said the government was keen to develop another greenfield port at Dhamra, located between Paradeep and Halide.
The project, he said, is likely to be set up jointly by Bang Peeking of Thailand, Itochu of Japan and the Infrastructure Development Corporation of Orissa.