Calcutta, Feb. 13: Calcutta Port Trust's decision to terminate the contract of E.C. Bose & Co will hurt its plans of reducing the cost of operations at Haldia port.
On Wednesday, the CPT cited inordinate delay in starting work while announcing its decision not to extend the contract.
The company, however, had written to the chief minister on February 1 alleging that it was not being able to start work because of pressure to take more labourers than required and pay them at an exorbitant rate. Similar allegations had been levelled by Haldia Bulk Terminals (HBT) before it exited the port in 2012.
E.C. Bose & Co said it was yet to receive a response to the letter.
The CPT has now come up with another tender that will raise the cost of cargo handling in Haldia by at least Rs 31.29 a tonne.
"There was a little delay on our part because of labour issues. We had informed everyone concerned, including CPT officials, the local MP (Trinamul's Subhendu Adhikari) and the chief minister. Our partners and I could not take the risk of bringing equipment and suffer damage. We may challenge the CPT's decision in court," said Deborshi Sadhan Bose, the director of E.C. Bose & Co.
In the new tender, the CPT has asked interested parties not to quote below Rs 85 a tonne for handling cargo in berths 2 and 8 and encouraged them to seek between Rs 95 and Rs 105 a tonne. Under the now-scrapped agreement with E.C. Bose & Co, the company had agreed to Rs 63.71 a tonne.
Sources said the CPT had settled for the higher rate because of the "ground reality", which forced it to accommodate the "unreasonable demands" of labour contractors and unions, the same cluster that had weighed down on HBT.
In its letter, E.C. Bose & Co has alleged that Five Star, a company that provides labour, had demanded between Rs 19 and Rs 24 for every tonne of cargo moved in the two berths although the contractor believed the cost would not be more than Rs 3 a tonne.
"We feel that Five Star's astronomical demand is based on a more sinister design to create some kind of labour unrest in days to come when the actual operations begin. A violent law and order situation is apprehended," the letter, signed by Partha Sadhan Bose, the chairman and managing director of E.C. Bose & Co, mentioned.
The letter also mentioned that the company had agreed to hire 525 workers, "as per the guidance of MP Subhendu Adhikari", from the Trinamul-backed Nationalist H.D.C. (CPT) Thika Sramik Mazdoor Union. E.C. Bose & Co alleged that after this, Five Star had put pressure on the company to hire its 1,000 labourers and some unions had also made similar demands.
According to the letter, Adhikari had advised the company not to pay heed to the demands of the other unions.
Five Star owner S.K. Muzaffar said he did not put pressure on E.C. Bose & Co and the firm was free to choose the number of workers to be hired.
"It is evident that the CPT understood the ground reality that these people (unions and other labour providers) cannot be ignored. That is why a base rate that accounts for these unreasonable demands was introduced," a port observer said.
The CPT has, however, refused to accept the labour problems cited by E.C. Bose & Co. "You had come up with various pretexts to wriggle out of the agreement since you were never in a position to perform different obligations as per agreement," the CPT's termination letter said.
Some of E.C. Bose & Co's competitors said the company was not financially sound to undertake the work and had quoted a "ridiculous price just to settle scores with some family members".
Former Trinamul Rajya Sabha MP Swapan Sadhan (Tutu) Bose was with his family firm E.C. Bose & Co before he set up his own company, Ripley.
