The Hindu Business Line : DP World going ahead with Kerala, Bengal plans

DP World’s projects at Kulpi in West Bengal and Vallarpadam in Kerala are both green-field projects and greater part of the $500-million worth Indian investments, announced last year.

Virendra Pandit

Ahmedabad, March 20 Leading global port operator Dubai Port World (DPW), which had to close down all its port operations in the US last year on “security reasons”, is going ahead with its current projects in Kerala and West Bengal where it plans to have a say in India’s cargo traffic across the Indian Ocean.

Currently, DP World operates terminals in India at Mundra in Kutch district, Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT) in Maharashtra, Chennai, Kochi and Visakhapatnam. It handled four million TEUs in India last year, including 6,50,000 TEUs at Mundra.

DP World’s projects at Kulpi in West Bengal and Vallarpadam in Kerala are both green-field projects and greater part of the $500-million worth Indian investments, announced last year, has been invested in the development of these facilities, Mr Ganesh Raj, Senior Vice-President and Managing Director (Sub-Continent), told Business Line here.

Vallarpadam project

DP World is currently developing facilities for the new container terminal at Vallarpadam within the Cochin Port Trust (CPT) administration. With the commissioning of the new container handling facility at Vallarpadam, the existing container terminal will be handed over to the CPT administration for developing it as a non-container facility. The CPT would develop road and rail links to the new facility in the first quarter of 2009.

The proposed project site at Vallarpadam was notified as a special economic zone by the Union Ministry of Commerce in November 2006. The new terminal will be positioned not only to handle transhipment traffic by virtue of its strategic position close to the major Far East — Europe trade lanes, but also to benefit from growth in consumer demand in India’s southern States, with transhipment traffic accounting for a relatively small portion of volumes, Mr Raj said.

Multi-product SEZ

DPW is also developing a multi-product SEZ spread over 1,040 hectares and a green-field container terminal on the east bank of River Hooghly. The port will be connected to the National Highway network through a new four-lane expressway and a new bridge across the river, both of which are being developed by the West Bengal Government.

Asked if DPW could exit from Mundra International Container Terminal (MICT), possibly making way for the Adani Group, its original developers, to run MICT as well, he said DPW had the distinct advantage of being a global chain of port operators. A number of shipping lines call on MICT mainly because it is being run by DPW as one of its 43 ports positioned globally in different countries, and thus, providing a seamless reach from one port to another.

MICT is supported by 17 direct services providing connectivity to Europe, the US, China, Far East, West Asia, Africa and so on. Maintaining that the Mundra Port would not have come up without Nhava-Sheva and DP World, Mr Raj said DPW’s customers want global connectivity of port management which his company provided.