State govt to take tips from Navy

The state government is set to rework its calculations to preserve the 20,000-tonne aircraft carrier, Vikrant, and turn it into a maritime museum after no one turned up for its final bidding.

The state government is set to rework its calculations to preserve the 20,000-tonne aircraft carrier, Vikrant, and turn it into a maritime museum after no one turned up for its final bidding.

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It decided to take tips from the navy to solve the technical problems and work on the financial viability of the project.

“We realised that there were two major hurdles ? — one to take the ship into the sea near Oyster Bay and second, to construct a jetty in the sea. This is a unique project and no one is experienced to handle this kind of a project, so we are consulting the navy,” said Manu Kumar Srivastava, secretary, urban development and special projects.

The government’s apex coordination committee that takes final decision on the project has the admiral and vice-admiral of the navy on it apart from the Chief Secretary J.P. Dange representing the government.

The committee will give its suggestions on the issues, Srivastava said. The ship is proposed to be grounded off Oyster Bay alongside the Gateway of India on a 2.6 lakh sq ft.

The state is also reworking on its financial calculations after it got five bids that qualified in the technical round and none turned up for the final round.

According to government sources, the bidders said the initial amount of Rs 100 crore spent for moving the ship and constructing a jetty was too high with no returns immediately until the project takes off.

So the government might consider providing viability gap funding for the project upfront instead of paying it in piecemeal to boost the project.