Pankaj Dastider
CHITTAGONG, Jan 27: The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) is going to start the construction work of Laldiar Char Multipurpose Terminal at Patenga under public-private partnership (PPP) initiative.
The authority has convened a meeting of the stakeholders of Chittagong seaport that takes place on Sunday morning. The stakeholders and the port authority will discuss the pros and cons regarding the construction of the port's Laldiar char terminal.
Member (Admin and Planning) of the CPA Md Zafar Alam told this correspondent on Saturday afternoon that the government in the budget for the fiscal year 2015-16 approved the multipurpose terminal project at Laldiar char under PPP.
Accordingly, the port authority published the Request for Qualification (RFQ) notice in June last year for the construction of the terminal.
As per the recommendations made by the evaluation committee of the port authority, five foreign consortiums were also shortlisted such as DP World of Dubai, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd of India, Ballore Transport Co of France, China Harbour and Engineering Co and Global Port Services of Singapore.
The CPA is now readying terms and conditions on how the selected firm will operate the terminal, the extent of productivity of the terminal, the royalty sharing of the port authority and other related issues, CPA board member Zafar Alam said.
He said the port authority has convened the meeting of its port users to discuss these and other issues and take their opinions for preparing papers regarding the Request for Proposal (RFP).
The director general of the PPP Authority, senior officials of the port authority and port's stakeholders will attend the meeting.
On the basis of their recommendations, the terms for enlistment of the contractors will be fixed and sent to the shortlisted companies. After receiving the proposals from the firms and on the basis of the port authority's technical and financial marking, the highest bidder will be selected. The CPA is hopeful of signing the contract by June this year.
The CPA member further said the port authority wants to complete the construction work of Laldia terminal by December 2020 and start its operation by early 2021. He said the investor consortium will prepare design, drawing of the project and construct its infrastructure.
It will also procure equipment for running the port and hand over the multipurpose terminal to the CPA after 25 years of operation.
The terminal will be constructed in between No 14 canal and jetty 15 having draught over 10 metres in the Karnaphuli River which is deeper than the existing jetty draught at 9.5 metres. Initially, it will be a bulk terminal. But the port authority plans to turn it into a multipurpose terminal for handling both bulk and containerized cargo.
It will be set up on 75 acres of land. The project, however, poses a challenge as there are a lot of temporary and permanent infrastructures which need to be pulled down. The residents who are living in the area need to be relocated and rehabilitated as planned at Hamidchar.
As per the feasibility study, the project cost has been estimated at around Tk 25 billion. Once it is commissioned, cargo handling of the port will be speedier and the vessels' turnaround time will be lessened significantly, officials at the port authority said.
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