The roll-out of the first of the 23 modern ferries for the Water Metro project of Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL), which was rescheduled to December earlier this year, might suffer further delay as the tender for a key component has not been finalised.
The delivery of the propulsion system of the vessels will take up to six months since tests will have to be done before they are assembled and shipped to India.
Fitting them in the first among the batch of 23 vessels and readying them for delivery will take another three months, sources said.
“It is not a technological challenge since the vessels will be constructed by integrating the existing technologies. But the choice of technology is the main challenge. Kochi Metro Rail Limited [KMRL] and Cochin Shipyard Limited [CSL] should have thought of optimising the technical specifications of the vessels to keep capital investment low. This is crucial since the income from passenger fare will be hardly enough to meet their operational expenses,” said Sandith Thandasherry, naval architect who pioneered the first solar-powered ferry in India.
Mr. Thandasherry also took strong exception to CSL, which is mainly into building big commercial and warships, being awarded the contract. “The firm has not built a single electric-powered vessel. The tender specifications by KMRL and CSL are against Start Up India and Make in India norms, wherein indigenous firms are discriminated against vis-a-vis foreign firms. This is because there is undue emphasis on turnover criteria as compared to technical criteria,” he said.
Although Kerala Shipping and Inland Navigation Corporation Limited (KSINC) too was in the fray to manufacture the ferries, it was overlooked due to high stipulations in the tender like the annual turnover criteria. The agency was willing to rope in indigenous firms to manufacture the vessels, to keep capital investment at a reasonable rate, it is learnt.
Sources in CSL said they were unsure of whether the December deadline would have to be extended. “The specifications of the vessels are unique and involve complexities since such vessels are not in operation anywhere in India,” they added.
On concerns over the delay in finalising tenders for the propulsion system, KMRL managing director Alkesh Kumar Sharma said it would be done by the first week of July. “The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the arrival of components, especially from European countries. But efforts are on to adhere to the December deadline for the first vessel. Work schedules to catch up with the man days lost are being readied,” he added.
On concerns aired by indigenous firms about reliance on foreign components, Mr. Sharma said emphasis would have been given to time-tested technologies so that the Water Metro was the latest and the best at the time of commissioning. The German funding agency which has extended loan too laid emphasis on this, he added.