The shipping ministry plans to award 14 capacity expansion projects worth more than Rs4,000 crore at major ports in the coming fiscal on a public private partnership (PPP) basis.
The shipping ministry plans to award 14 capacity expansion projects worth more than Rs4,000 crore at major ports in the coming fiscal on a public private partnership (PPP) basis.
There are 12 major ports in the country, directly under the administrative control of the shipping ministry. The ministry will also identify the heldover projects from the current year, which need to be carried forward.
In the current fiscal, out of the targeted 21 projects, the ministry has been able to award 8 worth around Rs3,330 crore.
“We have prepared a list of 14 new projects to be taken up in the next fiscal year. Also, we will soon finalise projects that could not be awarded in this fiscal which can be carried forward. The excercise is likely to be over in two weeks,” a top ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
One of the major projects that will be taken up in the next fiscal is Haldia Dock 2 in Kolkata, which alone will require an investment to the tune of Rs2,000 crore, the official said.
“The port has already got 50 acres of land from the state government out of the 163 acres required for the
project. We will get the balance land also soon. The feasibility study of the project is likely to be over in a week. We will initiate the request for qualification procedures in the next month,” the official said.
Dock 2 will be constructed on the western bank of the river Hooghly. It will have a draft of nine metres, compared with seven metres at Haldia. The project will have four jetties having total capacity of 20 million tonne.
Port expansion and modernisation plans have run into rough waters owing to litigations. Container terminal projects at both Tuticorin Port and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), on which the government had been betting big, have not yat taken off as the matter is still subjudice. The projects are for a fourth container terminal at JNPT, requiring investment worth Rs6,700 crore and for conversion of a berth into a container terminal at the Tuticorin port at an investment of Rs1,400 crore. The Supreme Court, which has heard the petitioner AP Moller Maersk in JNPT’s case and the government, is likely to pronounce its verdict soon.
An official said the ministry is hoping the judgment will be pronounced soon as April 15, 2011 is the last date till which the project can be extended. If that date is breached, the ministry will have to go for re-tendering as the projects’ viability and returns on investment may have to be reworked.
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