Gujarat Maritime Board to woo investors for ferry service
Gujarat Maritime Board will woo foreign investors and operators for country's first major ferry service for vehicles, cargo and passengers across the Gulf of Cambay in Gujarat. The construction of the terminals is already on and the board is now scouting for companies to operate the service. It is looking at companies from Europe, the US, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Australia, The Economic Times reports.
"We are conducting roadshows in Mumbai (June 11) and London (June 28). We will meet the investors from Europe and the US in London, while investors from South East Asia and Australia will participate in Mumbai. We expect to get Expression of Interest from close to 40 investors. Construction of terminals at Ghogha (Saurashtra) and Dahej (south Gujarat) is likely to be completed in about 18 months. By that time we want to finalise the operators so that they can buy ferries and the service can be rolled out on time," GMB vice chairman Pankajkumar told ET.
London-based consultant Beckett Rankine's India head Siddharth Shah said this is first of its kind of project in India so care is being taken at each stage. "We are also exploring the possibilities of a joint venture between Indian companies in the port and shipping sector as well as foreign companies with first hand experience in operating ferry service. We will be approching Essar Shipping, GVK, Adani group, Tatas and a few others for the operations.
A similar workshop was conducted last year but the companies were found wanting in terms of capacity," he told ET. As a part of the Roll On Roll Off (RO-RO) service, terminals are being constructed at Dahej in south Gujarat and Ghogha in Bhavnagar of Saurashtra. Infrastructure company Essar Projects began the work about two months ago.
According to a study by Beckett Rankine, 1059 cars, 777 buses, 367 light commercial vehicles, 2018 trucks and 444 multi-axle vehicles plied daily between south Gujarat and Saurashtra in November 2008. This could be tapped for RO-RO service. The time for the journey will be reduced from over 7 hours to one and a half hours and the distance can be reduced by about 300 kms.
The project is taken up on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, modelled along the air traffic. The terminals will be handed over to and managed by Gujarat Maritime Board, while the ferry services will be provided by private operators. GMB has identified four routes for to-and-fro ferry service. In the first phase Gogha in Bhavnagar will be connected with Dahej in Bharuch with an estimated investment of Rs 296 crore. In subsequent phases, it will connect Mundra (Kutch), Okha, Porbandar, Pipavav (all Saurashtra), Hazira-Suvali (south Gujarat) and Mumbai.
Similar ferry service is operational in Dover (England) to Calais (France) across the. About 8-10 ferries are operated daily. Other places where such a service is operational include Baltic Sea, Mediterranean sea, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Australia. All these countries have lot of ferry operators.