The first phase of the port, completed in 18 months at a cost of Rs 1,200 crore, was inaugurated on Thursday by United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi.
Located on the East Coast at a distance of 180 km from Chennai, the port has been developed on a BOST (build-operate-share-transfer) basis in public-private partnership mode by the state government and CVR Group. It is the first of the five ports, being developed by the private sector in the state, to commence operations. Another major port being developed at Gangavaram near Visakhapatnam is scheduled to be inaugurated next month.
"With strategic location and state-of-the-art infrastructure, Krishnapatnam is all set emerge as the largest private port in India," director of Krishnapatnam Port Company Limited, C Sasidhar, told Business Standard.
Apart from being closer to Chennai and Tirupati (120 km) airports, the port is connected to National Highway-5 through a state highway. Besides, a 25 km six-lane road is being laid connecting the port to the national highway. A dedicated railway line connecting the nearby Chennai-Howrah broad gauge line is also being developed.
Hyderabad-based Navayuga Engineering Company Limited, promoter of the CVR Group, is the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor of the port.
In the first phase, Krishnapatnam offers four multipurpose berths with a length of 300 metre each and a draft of 13.5 mt. In the second phase, to be completed by 2010-11, seven more berths of an equal length and a draft of 19 mt would be added. After completion of the final phase, the port will have a total of 41 berths.
Sasidhar said with a draft of 19 mt, the harbour can accommodate 'cape size' vessels, which would be as long as 320 mt and could carry a cargo of about 150,000 tonnes. "No other port in the country has this facility at present," he said.
According to Sasidhar, the port has the infrastructure to handle all types of containers, dry bulk and break bulk cargo. It has a planned area of 6,500 acre as backup for construction of storage capacities for various commodities. The closed warehouses at the port will stretch to 100,000 sq mt by 2009 for storing commodities like wheat, rice, fertiliser, sugar and tobacco. The port will also provide 2.3 million sq mts of open storage area for dry bulk cargo.
During the current financial year, the port is expected to handle 12 million tonne of cargo. This will increase to 22 million tonne next year and 35 million tonne by 2010-11. "In the next six years, we will be touching 100 million tonne. With the completion of the third phase, the port shall boast of a cargo capacity of 125 million tonne per annum," Sasidhar said.
As against these projected figures, the Visakhaptanam and Kandla ports handled a cargo of 63 million tonne and 62 million tonne respectively last year. The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), which mainly caters to north India-based cargo, handled 55.48 million tonne in 2007-08.
The development of the harbour involved rehabilitation of people from four villages. About 500 houses have been constructed and given to them. "The state government has given Rs 40,000 while we have spent an additional Rs 2 lakh on the construction of each house. The total amount spent towards relief and rehabilitation was over Rs 10 crore," Sasidhar said.
