DCI awarded Sethusamudram contract. Check it out:
(Lloyds List Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) INDIA'S cabinet committee on economic affairs has awarded state-run Dredging Corporation of India the entire Rs20.78bn ($448m) job of dredging 82.5m cu m for the Sethusamudram Ship Channel Project, writes Shirish Nadkarni in Mumbai.
DCI had earlier been awarded the capital dredging contract for 13.55m cu m for the Sethusamudram project, of which the company has finished pulling out 6.95m cu m of rock, silt and soil from the sea bed to date.
The public sector enterprise has now received approval for the remaining 69m cu m.
Earlier, Tuticorin Port Trust had floated an international tender for the work for the second time. The authorities were, however, dissatisfied with the rates of upwards of Rs50bn quoted by a number of global bidders, including Dutch and Belgian dredging companies.
'Had we accepted their bids it would have more than doubled the outlay for the Sethusamudram project,' said TPT chairman N Raghupathy.
The Sethusamudram project envisages dredging a ship channel across the Palk straits between India and Sri Lanka.
The channel will allow ships sailing between the east and west coasts of India to cut a straight passage through Indian territorial waters instead of having to sail round Sri Lanka.
It has been estimated that in the first year of operation of the project 3,055 ships will pass through the channel.
This translates to about nine transits a day.
Copyright 2006 Informa Martime Trade and Transport
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