Pursuant to the decision announced by the Prime Minister and the President of Maldives, at the SAARC Summit at Male on launching a ferry service between Kochi and Male, a team of officers from Maldives Ports Ltd, led by Mr Hussain Naeem, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Maldives Port Ltd (MPL), held discussions with the Cochin Port Trust to finalise the arrangements for the Kochi-Male ferry service.

The discussions at the Cochin Port Trust was led by its Chairman, Mr Paul Antony, the Deputy Chairman, Mr G. Krishnakumar, the Deputy Conservator, Capt Paul N. Joseph, the Chief Engineer, Mr G.P. Rai, the Traffic Manager, Dr C. Unnikrishnan Nair, the Secretary Mr Cyril C. George, and the Financial Advisor and Chief Accounts Officer, Mr K.G. Nath.

Capt A. Chopra, Senior Vice-President, Shipping Corporation of India, was also present. SCI has been mandated to invite expressions of interest and identify an operator to take up the ferry service.

Talks on

The Maldivian team also held discussions independently with representatives of the Indian Chamber of Commerce and the Cochin Chamber of Commerce.

They also met representatives of shipping companies, Custom house agents and the Seafood Exporters Association in Kochi.

Structure

In the meeting, it was decided to structure the ferry service as a cargo-cum-passenger service with passenger capacity of 300 and also to carry about 15-20 containers and about 500 tonnes of break bulk cargo.

The weekly ferry service is proposed to be commenced by January-February 2012.

The EoI will be floated by SCI soon after receiving confirmation from the Maldivian side that they are ready for the ferry service.

Ferry berth

In Kochi port, the ferry will be berthed at the BTP Jetty and will use the cruise terminal facility that is being developed at a cost of Rs 7 crore.

The work on the cruise terminal is expected to be completed by March, 2012.

The Maldivian team expressed a desire to get the ferry to touch Kulhuduffushi Port, also; however, since the port expansion work is yet to be completed, it was decided to start the ferry as a Kochi–Male–Kochi service and incorporate an option to extend it to Kulhuduffushi Port when the work is completed.

The ferry service brings up the potential of cargo movement from Kochi to Male since currently, a large amount of cargo from Kerala and South Tamil Nadu is being moved to Male routing through intermediate ports such as Singapore and Dubai.

There is limited movement of cargo from Tuticorin to Male. The transit time between Kochi and Male in a modern ferry is one day and will be ideal for movement for perishable cargo.

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