Kerala - Kochi   

‘Foreign cartel fleecing ports’

KOCHI: All India Port and Dock Workers’ Federation has alleged here that major ports in the country are being fleeced by foreign dredging companies which are operating as a cartel and that the ports should be permitted to carry out their own dredging operations.

If the ports are allowed to carry out their dredging operations by calling for tenders involving all parties it will save money for the ports, said a spokesman for the Federation here. A letter has been sent to the Secretary, Union Ministry of Shipping, regarding this.

The federation spokesman also said that the Board of Trustees of Cochin Port had decided to buy a dredger and had sought permission for the same. The dredger costs Rs.250 crore. The contracted amount for dredging for the proposed international container transhipment terminal is much higher than this.

If a dredger is bought by the Kochi port, it will not only save money for the port but also create employment here, he said

The federation letter to the Union Shipping Secretary said that the cost of dredging had gone up considerably for the major ports and that no measures had been initiated to optimise the cost of dredging. Various decisions and guidelines issued to the major ports from time to time had resulted in dredging cost going up significantly in the past.

One of the guidelines involved stringent prequalification norms. According to the federation, the norms had nothing to do with the channel of particular depth and length. They only helped the foreign companies. As a result of insistence on these norms, Indian companies that had good track records could not participate in the bid called for dredging operations.

The federation suggested that instead of prescribing a financial turnover as the pre-qualification norm, the quantity of dredging carried out over a period of time could be the criterion.

The federation letter also claimed that wherever foreign dredging companies were the sole qualified ones, ports had to do with conditional bids and pay double or triple the amount of the original cost or went in for re-tenders or totally abandoned the work.

Though as a policy Indian dredging companies were encouraged, there were only a few Indian companies in the field. The public sector Dredging Corporation of India survived because of protection given to it by the government.

Under these circumstances, the ports should be allowed to meet their dredging requirements by involving all parties concerned, said the federation letter.

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