No bidders for museum on Vikrant,hunt starts afresh

An effort to preserve the aircraft carrier Vikrant as a maritime museum has hit a roadblock with none of the five short-listed parties bidding for the project....

An effort to preserve the aircraft carrier Vikrant as a maritime museum has hit a roadblock with none of the five short-listed parties bidding for the project. The last date for submission was April 9,and the government now plans to invite tenders afresh.

No one has bid. We will have to explore the market again, admitted a government official involved in the project,adding that fresh tenders would be invited late next month.

He guessed the potential bidders could have been apprehensive about the returns they could expect from the project. People would like to be sure of the investment, he said,but added it was difficult to pinpoint a single reason why the potential bidders had backed out.

The aircraft carrier,which had played a pivotal role in the 1971 War and was decommissioned in 1997,is berthed at the Naval Dockyard. In February 2009,the government issued a notice for request for qualification RFQ for its development as a museum through a public-private partnership PPP. The five parties were short-listed in a two-stage process.

CRISIL had carried out a feasibility study on the PPP model and recommended commercial exploitation of the helipad and a restaurant. The existing museum on the ship,which houses exhibits on the 1971 War,is spread around 48,000 sq ft. Under the project,250,669 sq ft was to be used commercially and for the proposed museum. A restaurant,convention centre,helipad,club and art gallery had been planned aboard the ship,to be berthed at Oyster Rock in Colaba. The project was expected to be completed by 2011.

The government was planning to provide viability gap funding VGF for the project,which has seen costs escalate to Rs 185 crore in 2006 from the original Rs 50 crore due to time overruns.

We will now revise the detailed project report. We will also like to get feedback from possible bidders who did not participate last time, said the official. We plan to give developers flexibility in commercial exploitation of the ship.

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The BMC has made a provision of Rs 25 crore in the 2009-2010 budget for the project. The civic body is responsible for the construction of a road leading to the vessel in the middle of the sea but backed out owing to a delay in permission from the Navy and Ministry of Forest and Environment.