HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, NOV 10
Arihant Ship-breaking company is a front runner to salvage M V River Princess, which lies grounded off Candolim shore.
The State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC), which opened the bids of all the companies on Wednesday has zeroed in on Arihant Ship-breaking, which has quoted the lowest price.
The company has quoted Rs 99 crore in its proposal to salvage the vessel, which is much lower than the other three companies, finalised by the committee on Tuesday.
Titan Maritime (Sea) Pvt Ltd, Singapore has quoted Rs 142 crore; Madgavkar Salvage joint bid with Smith Salvage, Singapore bided Rs 148 crore; while Resolve Salvage and Fire Europe Limited, UK quoted Rs 255 crore for the tender.
However, the final decision over floating the tender would be taken by the State government committee, which will be meeting shortly.
The Committee member Agnelo Fernandes said that the State government will now keep the bids for negotiation and
accordingly the decision will be taken.
“The tender will be awarded to the company, which will quote the lowest. Now, the process of negotiation will begin. The final decision is in the hands of government,” he stated.
The committee in its meeting on November 9 had rejected the bids of three companies – Salgaonkar Mining Industries Pvt Ltd (SMIPL); Jeisu Shipping Pvt Ltd and Al Fara General Trading, Bahrain as they failed to compete technically.
The High Court, in its order on September 8 had directed the State government to commence the work of vessel removal within two months from the date.
After much tussle, when both SMIPL and River Princess Hatao Manch withdrew their offers to remove the vessel for free, citing reasons that the performance guarantee of Rs 10 crore demanded by the government was too high and other two bidders Titan Salvage and Madgavkar Salvage failed to comply with the tendering rules, the government decided to float fresh tender for the removal of the vessel.
