Goemkarponn desk
PANAJI: Minister for River Navigation Subhash Phaldesai today said that the Department is in the process of leasing out the Solar Boat to a private agency for revenue generation following codal formalities.
“No revenue was generated from the Solar Electronic boat as passengers are ‘FREE’. Also, this FRP boat is made for passengers only. It was scheduled to ply on Chodan to Panaji. However it is now decided to ‘offload’ the same boat for tourism purposes to private agency in order to generate revenue,” said Phaldesai.
He further said that on operation of the boat expenditure incurred is Rs. 1,39,000/-. No revenue was earned as the operation from Chodan to Panaji was FREE for passengers. The department is in the process of leasing out the Solar Boat to a private agency for revenue generation following codal formalities.
“After publishing the Expression of Interest, for the construction of the Solar Electric boat, two parties responded. Then the Government decided to take the help of IIT, Goa for assessing the technical specifications as the department did not have expertise in the field,” he said.
Minister said that later as per the advice of IIT, Goa, the file was sent to Finance Department for acceptance of the lowest bid submitted by M/s Aquarius Shipyard Pvt. Ltd. amounting to Rs. 3,97,95,000/-
“No separate jetties were constructed for Solar Electric boat but the boat was using existing floating jetties at Panaji and Chodan,” Subhash added
