Earlier, the project cost was pegged at over Rs 500 crore.
A committee under the chairmanship of captain P V K Mohan revised the project proposal which originally was planned in two phases with provisions for handling both dry bulk cargo as well as containers.
The committee asked KoPT to go for containerisation of cargo in line with the global trend as half of global cargo was in containers. The container terminal will be built in private-public partnership format on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis, said Anup Chanda, chairman of KoPT.
Total capacity for container handling would be 1.6 million containers and was expected to hit 1.1 million units in the first year. The project would be built in a single phase.
The new terminal would have four ship handling jetties and two barge jetties. About 120 acres would be required for the project. Of this, around 23 hectares would come from the West Bengal government, 16 hectares from private owners while the rest from Defence authorities and director general of lighthouse and lightships.
Chanda said environment clearance for the project was in hand and so KoPT planned to appoint a consultant for preparing a detailed project report (DPR) this month.
KoPT would build three more container freight stations (CFS) to supplement its existing two CFS. The project plan was before the ministry of commerce awaiting sanction.
The two existing CFSs were under Central Warehousing Corporation and Balmer Lawrie.
KoPT was keen on a rail-linkage between the Balmer Lawrie CFS and the Kolkata Dock System (KDS) to overcome the trailer shortage that was pushing up transaction cost.
KoPT's net surplus rose 15 per cent on year-on-year basis to Rs 530 crore in 2007-08 after a rate revision effective from March 2007 that brought down tariff by 20 per cent.
This was done to keep the return on capital employed (ROCE) at 16 per cent under norms.
