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The Ministry of Shipping is likely to finalise the site for the proposed integrated port and shipyard project in Andhra Pradesh in the next two months.
3 locations
The State Government has identified three locations for the project and has earmarked 5,000 acres of land at these sites. The proposed sites are Nakkapally in Visakhapatnam district, Ramaypatnam in Prakasam district and Durgarajapatnam in Nellore district.
“The Ministry has appointed an expert committee, which has already visited the Nakapally site. It is expected to visit the remaining two in January 2012 and give its recommendation a month after that,” Capt P.V.K. Mohan, Chairman of the National Shipping Board, told Business Line .
Project outlay
The NSB, which initiated the proposal with the Ministry, expects the project outlay to be about Rs 4,500 crore. The Vizag port, Cochin Shipyard, Shipping Corporation of India and the National Mineral Development Council are likely to be stakeholders in the project, according to Capt Mohan.
The port, which will have a draft of between 16 m and 18 m to accommodate bigger vessels, will be handling mostly coal, needed by the power plants, agri-products, steel and iron ore.
The Union Minister of Shipping, Mr G.K. Vasan, has asked maritime States to submit proposals for Greenfield port projects, as it has been projected that the Indian ports sector, including non-major ports, may be required to handle about 1,590 million tonnes throughput by 2025-26.
India's container traffic is also expected to touch 21 million TEUs by 2015, as projected by the Maritime Agenda 2010-2020.
States with interest
Gujarat, West Bengal and Kerala have shown interest in taking up port projects. “In West Bengal, a deep-water port is being developed at Sagar, while a container terminal is being set up through private participation at Diamond Harbour.
For the container terminal project, the RFQ (request for qualification) document has been floated, with 11 companies, including DP World, PSA, ILFS and APM being in the fray,” Capt Mohan said.
The Ministry is keen on hastening implementation of the port projects, as there are constraints in expanding the existing major ports. Non-major ports are likely to handle 51 per cent of the total traffic by 2020.
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