JNPT project ‘victims’ hit the jackpot

Acquiring land for building new ports is often a tricky and contentious affair. But, what is often overlooked is the land value accretion that follows when port operations begin, benefiting those people who reluctantly sold their land to set up the maritime gateway.

Take for instance Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, India’s biggest and busiest State-owned container port near Mumbai, which handles 40 per cent of the country’s container cargo passing through its ports.

Land acquisition In 1984, the government acquired 2,933 hectares of land (1,169 hectares of private land and 1,764 hectares of government land) through the City and Industrial Development Corporation of Maharashtra Ltd (CIDCO), for the construction of the new port.

The entire land was situated in 12 revenue villages of Uran taluka of Maharashtra’s Raigad district, 100 km from Mumbai. The private land was acquired from 10,469 local land owners under the Land Acquisition Act 1894. An acre of land was purchased from farmers for ₹15,000.

“The land value now is ₹30-40 crore a hectare,” said Neeraj Bansal, Deputy Chairman of JNPT. One hectare is 2.47 acres.

Windfall benefits “The 111 hectares we are distributing to some 3,524 project affected persons (PAPs) works out to more than ₹4,000 crore worth of land. Ports create a huge economic value,” he told BusinessLine .

The PAPs are being allotted plots developed in accordance with town planning rules.

“Overnight, people have become rich. Till 25 years ago, it used to be a fishermen’s enclave. A huge value has been created by JNPT in everybody’s life. Now you see pucca houses, most modern cars, and luxurious lifestyle. They are flush with money,” Bansal said.

“We did hundred per cent right by giving up our land for building JNPT,” said Gaurav Koli, Sarpanch of Hanuman Koliwada in Uran taluka. “We left our village for the progress of the nation. And, the progress happened,” says Koli, whose family sold 18 guntas of land to the government in 1984.

“Sheva was our motherland. But, there were hardly any earnings from that land. We were selling grass, vegetables and catching fish,” said Ganesh Gharat, a union leader at Nhava Sheva Bandar Kamgar Sangathan Antargat.

“We were in a remote area, even buses wouldn’t go there. The port has triggered exponential development in and around the area,” he said.

Job opportunities Some 1,000 locals from the Nhava Sheva area were given employment by JNPT. A few hundreds more got jobs in the private terminals at the port.

“Port jobs improved our earnings and living standards. The village developed, education system improved and our children have a much better future,” Gharat said, adding that his family also had sold land to the government.

JNPT, built with an investment of ₹1,109 crore, was opened on May 26, 1989. The port handled 62.025 million tonnes (mt) of cargo during FY17, including 4.5 million twenty-foot equivalent units or TEUs. It posted a net profit of ₹1,303.89 crore on income of ₹1,677.90 crore.

In 2012, the Union Cabinet agreed to return 111 hectares of JNPT land to the Maharashtra government for allotment to PAPs – the first such rehabilitation of project affected persons who had to give their land for the project.

Growth potential “That process is on”, Bansal added. The value creation isn’t ending there.

By December, Singapore’s PSA International Pte Ltd will open the first phase of a ₹7,915-crore, 4.8 million TEU capacity terminal, the fifth at JNPT, helping the port double its container handling capacity to 10 million TEUs from the existing 5 million TEUs by 2022.

Also on the anvil is a multi-product special economic zone (SEZ) and free-trade warehousing zone (FTWZ) spread over 277 hectares.

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