The Orissa government’s bid to promote 13 new ports along its 480 km coast line is likely to suffer setback in the absence of a systematic study on the maximum port potential in the identified locations and beyond them.
The Orissa government has signed memorandum of understanding MoU) with Dhamara Port Company Ltd. (DPCL) for development of an all weather port at Dhamara and with Creative Port Private Ltd.(CPPL) for development of an all weather port at Kirtania. Similarly, it has signed agreement with Gopalpur Port Ltd. (GPL) for an all weather port at Gopalpur and with the Hyderabad based Navayuga Engineering Company Limited (NECL) for developing a port at Astharanga in Puri district.
According to the experts monitoring the port sector of the state, there is no study by the government to explore the possibility of setting up of more ports along the coastline beyond the 13 identified locations and the maximum potential for each of these identified locations.
Taking up a study to assess the potential assumes importance as there cannot be any commercial port on 50 kms on either side of Gopalpur port as per the concession agreement signed with GPL. Similarly, Dhamara port and Kirtania port have been given exclusive rights over the waterfront expanding up to 25 Km on either side of their ports.
In addition, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has claims over 120 km coast where commercial port cannot come up. Besides, 80 kms of the coast cannot be used due to Chilika, turtle conservation activities and marine park proposed near Berhampur.
This leaves only 80 kms of coast for development of commercial ports. To add to the difficulty, the state government is going on signing MoUs with private developers without assessing the maximum potential of a location.
For instance, Chennai based MARG Ltd. and SSL Infrastructure have proposed to develop all weather ports at Palur in Ganjam district. While MARG has proposed to have a cargo handling capacity of 10 million tonne, IICL Infrastructure is reported to have proposed to develop a port in the same location with a cargo handling capacity of 5 million tonne per annum.
Experts say, nobody knows about the maximum potential for this location. If the potential is say 50 million tonne and the government allows a developer to develop a port with 5 to 10 million tonne capacity, then we are under-utilising the potential.
Similarly, in case of proposals to set up captive ports, it has to be ascertained whether optimal capacity of the location is being utilized or not. In this backdrop, a potential study will address the conflicting interests encountered in the process. Similar is the case with Bahuda Muhana, where a large port can also be possible. So instead of permitting one developer to develop a port with lesser capacity, it would be in the interest of the state to allot a port to a group of developers who will form a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to implement the project.
The other irritant coming in the way of port development in Orissa coast pertain to the objections raised by the DRDO. Though it claims 120 kms of coast line for its missile testing activities, its bare minimum requirement has to be assessed to leave room for port development activities along the coast. The Union ministry of defence and the ministry of surface transport need to explore the possibility of shifting the short range testing activities to some waste land in a state like Rajasthan.
