In order to make itself financially secure, the Kolkata Port Trust is planning to sell or lease out about 100 acres of land in his huge land bank of more than 3,000 acres in the city, likely for commercial purposes.
“In order to meet the pension liability in future, we need an additional corpus of Rs 3,000 crore, adding to Rs 2,000-crore corpus we have created since 2004. We have about 30,000 pensioners with KoPT. In order to create this corpus amount, we have submitted a proposal with the Centre government to lease out or sell about 100 acres of land, at seven to eight prime localities in the city. It will be done through auction route,” said Manish Jain, chairman, KoPT.
The locations that the port has zeroed in is along Diamond Harbour road and Strand road in Kolkata. “It can be used for commercial or real estate purpose by the firm. But how much we will be able to raise can be decided only after the valuation,” he added.
The port said on Tuesday that its net profit has increased 29 per cent to Rs 90 crore in 2011-12, compared to Rs 70 crore during the previous financial year. Meanwhile, the port has handled 43.25 million tonnes (MT), compared to 47.5 MT during the last financial year, down about 4 MT.
Meanwhile, Kolkata Port is planning to expand its handling capacity to 100 MT by the end of the 12th Five Year Plan. “This will be through various development projects — including Haldia Dock II North and South, transloading at Sandheads, container terminal at Diamond Harbour and a deep draught port at Sagar — that we have lined up. It may see an overall investment of Rs 15,000 crore,” he said. Out of this Rs 15,000 crore public private partnership projects, KoPT would be investing about Rs 2,500 crore.
He said that Sagar port is still under consideration of the port and not yet scrapped completely.