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The decks seem to be clearing for second phase expansion of Dhamra Port, an equal joint venture between Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Tata Steel after the promoters obtained environment clearance in January.
The state government has asked its ports directorate to assess land need for Phase-II expansion of the deep draught port developed off the coast of north Odisha. The port project is implemented by Dhamra Port Company Ltd (DPCL) where both Tata Steel and L&T hold 50 per cent equity each.
“The requirement of land as indicated by the port developers may kindly be examined in line with the guidelines prepared by Rites Ltd and your views in the matter may be offered for taking further action,” Arun Chandra Mangaraj, under secretary (commerce & transport) wrote to director of ports & inland water transport, Odisha.
Santosh K Mohapatra, chief executive officer, DPCL said, “The Dhamra port has around 300 acres of surplus land. We had sought 745 acres land from the government. About 1,000 acres of land would suffice for the second phase capacity expansion.”
Rites, the engineering and consultancy arm of Indian Railways, has benchmarked land need for developers of non-major port projects in Odisha. In its final report submitted to the state commerce & transport department. Rites has suggested a ‘thumb rule’ — allotting 50 acres of land for every million tonne of cargo handling capacity proposed by the developer.
Dhamra port which began commercial operations in May 2011 has been hit hard by curbs on iron ore exports.
After a slump in the iron ore export market, the port was aiming to boost its revenues through handling of diversified cargo like container cargo, liquid cargo, LNG (liquefied natural gas) and crude oil.
DPCL had chalked out Rs 10,000-crore expansion plan that was to ramp up its berth strength to 13 from two presently and upgrade cargo handling capacity four-fold from 25 million tonne per annum (mtpa) to 100 mtpa in five years.
The second phase capacity ramp up would also pave the way for a five mtpa LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal to be set up within the port premises by Indian Oil Corporation Ltd (IOCL). The terminal to be setup at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore needed 150 acres of land. Both IOCL and DPCL had signed an MoU for the project.
Presently, the port with two berths, is capable of handling 12 million tonne of imported dry bulk cargo and 13 million tonne of dry bulk cargo for exports.
