Kochi: The Kerala High Court adjourned to Monday the hearing on a writ petition seeking a direction to the State government and the Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd., to open the technical and financial bids submitted by a Mumbai-based consortium for the construction of the International Deepwater Seaport and Container Transhipment Terminal at Vizhinjam.

The petition also sought to take steps to award the tender to one of the consortiums which has submitted the most competitive bid.

When the petition came up for hearing on Wednesday, the government handed over to the court the technical and financial bids submitted by the petitioner, Zoom Developers Limited. It said the respondents had treated the proposal submitted by the petitioner’s consortium as non-responsive and did not open it.

The petitioner said it had spent about Rs.10 crore for conducting a detailed study/evaluation of the project and submitting the qualification, technical and financial bids. The least the State government could have done was to open its bid and find out whether it was more competitive than the bid submitted by the LANCO Consortium.

Source: The Hindu