The Container Company of Bangladesh Ltd (CCBL) received no response to a bid invitation for investment and development of an inland container depot (ICD) at Ghorashal in Narsingdi, making the fate of the project uncertain.
According to official sources, 12 private companies bought tender documents, but none responded until the latest deadline that ended on June 21. The authorities extended the bid submission deadline for three times.
The state-owned rail container company under the Ministry of Railway invited financial proposals from interested companies on January 10 last to develop the ICD on 20 acres of Bangladesh Railways land near Ghorashal rail station on Design-Build-Finance-Operate-Maintain-Transfer (DBFOMT) basis.
It is planned to be a multimodal ICD to facilitate movement of rail-based containerised cargoes to and from Bangladesh and neighbouring countries.
The CCBL asked the interested bidders to conduct a feasibility study on their own and place their respective financial proposals.
Sources, however, said the companies got discouraged as they found while conducting the feasibility study that a significant portion of the land was occupied by the then influential construction firm Toma Construction and Company Limited.
Besides, many BR employees were unwilling to cooperate with the interested bidders as they were allegedly involved in using the land by the grabbers.
Official sources said that an inquiry committee was formed later to find out the reasons behind non-participation and the CCBL would report on the findings to its next board meeting scheduled on November 21.
Sources said the company is still interested to conduct the feasibility study by the interested companies and wants to place a proposal in the board for its approval.
"We are now planning to float tender again as Toma Construction has already removed all equipment dumped on the land following the regime change," said an official, preferring not to be named.
When asked, CCBL Managing Director Mohammad Miajahan said the state-owned company could not study the feasibility as it should be done by the private companies interested in container handling and its business prospects.
"The project should be viable due to its proximity to the Chattogram Port and industrial belts like the AK Khan Economic Zone," he told the FE.
He further said that the land-related problems have been solved.
A pre-feasibility study by the CCBL showed that the planned ICD would be able to handle 100,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers annually.
After building it under the PPP model, the private company would operate the ICD for a period of 25 years and then would handover it to the CCBL with all moveable and immovable assets.
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