Union government will help IIT Chennai for creating a Centre of Excellence which will troubleshoot various issues that arise during the current spate of development of ports and rivers.
Union minister for Road Transport and Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, Nitin Gadkari today announced the appointment IIT Chennai for creating Centre of Excellence.
The minister was in Goa to chair the meeting to review various developmental works undertaken by his ministry.
The minister recalled that IIT Chennai had assisted the ministry during its work to have alternate channel at Haldia port saving Rs 200-250 crore annually.
"We had a channel at Haldia port where we used to spend annually Rs 4,500 crore for dredging annually. Then we decided that we can as well have alternate channel which will save us Rs 200-250 crore annually.
"We gave this work to Chennai IIT who worked on this project with the help of a foreign construction company," the minister said.
After this experience, he said the ministry has decided to establish centre of excellence in IIT Chennai for providing technical support.
"We have converted 111 rivers into inland waterways where we have began the work like dredging. During this entire process we find some issues which are related to marine engineering. IIT Chennai will provide solution for these problems may they be in the ocean, rivers or ports," he said.
The minister announced that the union government will give a grant to the tune of Rs 75 to Rs 100 crore to IIT Chennai to set up Centre of Excellence.
"As a part of this centre, IIT Chennai will also study the existing projects and work out the maintenance and schedules for dredging and other activities resulting in cost cutting," he said.
Stating about the decisions taken during the review meeting, Gadkari said the ministry has decided that each port will have its own business development team.
"For the first time the private sectors were participating in the meeting. India is the fastest growing economy. It has been decided that each of the port will have business development team which will work for increasing profits of the port by working with cargo and also tourism sectors," the minister added.
The meeting also decided to have focus on creating Liquid Cargo Handling facility.
"We have been importing petroleum products and also edible oil. We are proposing dry ports for it. In Maharashtra itself there will be four dry ports at Aurangabad, Vidarbha, Nashik and Sangli," he added.
The ministersaid on lines with the 34 logistic parks planned by the National Highway Authority, we have also decided to have similar parks in the ports.
These parks will be planned at Chennai, Paradeep and Vizag.
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