JSW bags award to develop greenfield port in Karnataka for Rs 4,119 crore

JSW Infrastructure on Thursday said it has received a letter of award to develop an all-weather, deep-water, greenfield port at Keni Port in Karnataka on a public private partnership basis for Rs 4,119 crore.

JSW Infrastructure in a statement said the proposed Keni Port would have modern environment-friendly mechanised facilities for handling cape-size vessels.

"To begin with, the capacity of the proposed port shall be 30 MTPA (million tonnes per annum) in the initial phase with further potential to increase substantially in the long run," the statement said.

Keni Port is envisaged as an all-weather, greenfield, multi-cargo, direct berthing, deep-water commercial port for handling all types of cargoes on the west coast in the North Karnataka region to serve the industries in the area covering Bellary, Hosapete, Hubballi, Kalaburagi, and South Maharashtra, the statement added.

The proposed Keni Port is located strategically between two operational major ports viz Mormugao Port in the north and New Mangalore Port in the south.

"We will start working to develop the Keni Port as an integral part of Karnataka's maritime infrastructure and trade gateway," JSW Infrastructure CEO and Joint MD Arun Maheshwar said.

Once developed, the Keni port is expected to crucially address the rising import and export trade momentum of the region, he added.

JSW Infrastructure Ltd -- a part of the JSW Group -- is the second largest commercial port operator in India in terms of cargo handling capacity in FY23.

According to the statement, rail connectivity to the Keni Port site is proposed to be in the southern side and will be connected with the existing Konkan line to north of the Ankola station.

The proposed railway alignment will be developed with a total length of about 8 km, the statement said, adding that the proposed port shall be well connected with road and railway connectivity.