Three of the five firms that were shortlisted in March have purchased the price bid documents to participate in the tenders process for the Vizhinjam International Deepwater Seaport (VISL) in India.

The three interested bidders are the following:

• ESSAR Ports;
• A consortium of Srei Infrastructure and OHL; and
• Adani Group.

The two shortlisted teams that have not bought the price bid documents yet are:

• Gammon Infrastructure Projects Ltd and
• A consortium of Hyundai and Concast Infratech Ltd.

The deadline to bid for the seaport PPP project has been extended from 20 August to 10 September 2014.

The port will be one of the largest ports in the world. The port is envisaged to provide a total of 2000 m of quay length in three phases and is designed to cater primarily for containers transshipment.

The project will be developed on a design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis. The toal project investment is estimated at US$640 million

The draft concession agreement has been prepared with the help of the legal and financial advisors, HSA Advocates and Ernst and Young.

Last friday the Empowered Institution under the Indian Ministry of Finance recommended the project for the government's viability gap funding. The Empowered Institution can sanction up to Rs2,000 million (US$32.6 million) as viability gap funding for infrastructure PPP projects.

Vizhinjam is a locality of Thiruvananthapuram city in the Indian state of Kerala.