The Hindu Business Line : Pre-PIB meeting to take up dredging issue of JNPT channel

The much delayed plan of deepening the approach channel of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust will be taken up in a pre-Public Investment Board meeting this week, Mr S.S. Hussain, Chairman of JNPT, told newspersons here.

The JNPT plans to dredge the channel and increase the draught from 12.5 metres to 14.5 m to be able to handle 6,000 TEU vessels, Mr Hussain said on the sidelines of celebrations of the port’s 19th anniversary, which also coincided with its handling of over 50 million tonnes of cargo in FY08.

Last year, Van Oord, a Netherlands-based company, was announced as the lowest bidder for the project quoting Rs 1,000 crore. However, that exceeded the estimate of Rs 800 crore made by the Ministry of Shipping, and it now awaits the clearance of the Public Investment Board and the Central Government.

Cargo handling

The port handled 55 million tonnes of cargo last fiscal against 44 million tonnes in 2006-07. The total container traffic was 51 million tonnes (40 million tonnes), dry bulk cargo was recorded at 7.4 lakh tonnes (6.1 lakh tonnes), liquid bulk stood at 31.6 lakh tonnes (33.7 lakh tonnes), break bulk (project cargo and Ro-Ro traffic) was 5.6 thousand tonnes (14.6 thousand tonnes)

Expansion plans

For current financial year, JNPT plans to invest Rs 200 crore on its capacity expansion plans. The port has earlier announced a capex of Rs 7,000 crore to be invested over a period of five to six years on its 32 ongoing projects which would enable it to handle more capacity of cargo and bigger ships.

Some of the important projects would include deepening of the approach channel, purchase of new cranes, deepening of the shallow berth and possibly setting up of a fourth container terminal pending for a long time.

The port is looking at changing three cranes and also looking at the possibility of hiring two more cranes, he said.

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