The Hindu Business Line : Mumbai port’s offshore container terminal to be ready by 2010

The port’s contribution would amount to Rs 366 crore covering the cost of dredging, filling up of Princess and Victoria docks to create container storage space and laying of three railway tracks to facilitate construction of rail container depots.

Santanu Sanyal

Kolkata, Aug 27 The licence agreement, between the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) and the promoters of Indira Container Terminal Pvt Ltd (ICTPL), having been signed for the construction of the Rs 1,228-crore offshore container terminal (OCT) on build, operate, transfer (BOT) basis, the preparatory work for the project has started.

The terminal is due to start operation in December 2010.

Giving this information to Business Line, Mr A.K. Bal, Deputy Chairman of MbPT, said the port’s contribution to the project would amount to Rs 366 crore covering the cost of dredging, filling up of Princess and Victoria docks to create container storage space and laying of three railway tracks to facilitate construction of rail container depots.

Rail, road connectivity

Rail and road connectivityprojects, namely, Vadala-Kurla dedicated rail freight corridor project and Eastern Express Freeway project, would also be part of the container terminal to help faster movement of traffic into and out of the port, he said.

The port authorities would be required to resettle and rehabilitate about 3,000 slum-dwellers before the work on the dedicated railway freight corridor can be taken up by the Central Railway, he added.

Most of the slum-dwellers were occupying the railway land, he said.

The proposed dedicated freight corridor would be connected to fifth and sixth line of the Central Railway, while the Eastern Express Freeway to the National Highway No. 3 bypassing the busy traffic snarl of the city, he added. The completion of the both rail and road projects is to coincide with the completion of the offshore container terminal project in December 2010.

Capacity

The terminal will have the capacity of handling 1.2 million TEUs annually and will be capable of handling up to 6,000 TEU vessels.

As part of the agreement, the port’s existing container terminal BPS has already been handed over to ICTPL, promoted by Gammon India Ltd and Dragadoss SPL, Spain.