JNPT to invest ₹800 cr to develop 2 dry ports

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) is likely to make ready the Jalna and Wardha dry ports over the next 18 months.

The Jalna port will come up close to Aurangabad, with an annual capacity of 20,000 TEUs.

Wardhwa will come up near Nagpur, with another 20,000 TEU annual capacity. Around ₹400 crore will be spent on each of the two ports.

According to C UnniKrishnan Nair, Chief Manager (Traffic), JNPT, work has begun on developing the two dry ports on a public-private partnership basis.

“Development work on Jalna and Wardhwa has already begun and should be ready within 18 months,” he told BusinessLine on the sidelines of a conference organised by the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “Land has been obtained for both the projects.”

The Shipping Ministry has been trying to develop dry port infrastructure to improve the turnaround time of ships calling at major ports in the country.

A dry port, Nair explained, will help logistics companies consolidate their operations and also complete export/import procedures at inland locations that are relatively closer to farms and factories. It provides customers better control over the cargo.

Rather than getting stacked at port warehouses for Customs clearances, containers can now be directly transported via road and rail networks to the inland dry port, where customers or exporters can get Customs clearance for their containers.

“The dry ports will lead to a near 20 per cent reduction in costs for exporters, apart from faster clearances and better control over cargo,” Nair added.

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