Ports to invest Rs 10,260 cr in five yrs

Containerisation seems to be the order of the day. At a time when more cargos are being moved in boxes, major ports are gearing up to invest a whopping Rs 10,260 crore to set up container terminals in five years. This is in addition to container terminals being set up at non-major ports run by private players.

"Out of eight container terminals, the third container terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) will be operational shortly with an investment of Rs 1,000 crore, while the work on the International Transhipment Container Terminal at Vallarpadam (Kochi) has started. The Kochi project would cost Rs 2,220 crore," a senior government official said.

Authorities of the JNPT, Tuticorin and Ennore ports will invite expression of interest (EoI) for construction of terminals shortly.

The combined investment for these are pegged at Rs 5,150 crore. Bids have been put in for construction of Chennai and Mumbai ports, while the work for Kandla port terminal has just started.

The third container terminal at JNPT is developed by a consortium of Danish shipping giant Maersk Sealand and rail PSU Container Corporation of India (Concor). The transhipment terminal at Kochi Port is developed by Dubai Ports World.

JNPT, which handles over 58 per cent of India's container traffic, is also developing fourth container terminal with quay (berth) length of two kms. The port is in the process of appointing a consultant to this Rs 4,000 crore project, said a senior JNPT official.

According to government statistics, the compounded annual rate of growth for the overall projected container twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) is estimated at 18.31 per cent for all the ports.

"For containerised cargo, the maximum capacity requirement at ports are likely to go up from the existing 50 million tonne to 186 million tonne (15.20 TEUs) by 2013-14," industry analysts said.

Major ports are likely to handle seven million TEUs against 3.9 million TEUs in 2003-04.

Meanwhile, the level of containerisation is growing over 75 per cent as the handling cost is lower for containerised cargo against break bulk items. The main containerised cargos are garments, electronic goods, agro products, machinery parts, leather and jute products.

Ports are witnessing many hitherto break bulk cargos such as rice, maize, glass, granite, garmet sand, soya, cement, banana, cotton, green coffee beans and flowers are now moving in containers, industrial analysts pointed out.

"The proposed investment will be channelised through private sector participation with suitable safeguards to ensure that the facilities are operated as public utility ones. All projects will be on build operate and transfer (BOT) basis," a government official said.

Meanwhile, the government is also initiating channel deepening process to facilitate the berth construction and operations, so as to equip them to receive bigger vessels.

The various channel dredging projects under consideration are at JNPT (Rs 800 crore), Paradip Port (Rs 154 crore), Kochi Port (Rs 379 crore) and Kandla Port (Rs 87 crore). River regulatory measures for improvement of shipping channel in Hooghly Estuary of Kolkata Port (Rs 385 crore) is also under consideration.