Shipping Ministry chalks out plans to make ports energy sufficient

In order to make the 12 major ports in the country self sufficient in terms of power requirements, the Union Ministry of Shipping has drawn up a plan for producing 150 MW of electricity from solar, offshore and onshore wind mills, tidal waves and other non-conventional sources of energy.

The project cost is likely to be about ₹1,000 crore.

Union Minister for Shipping Nitin Gadkari told mediapersons on the sidelines of an industry event that a plan is being formulated in which roof tops of large warehouses would be used for producing solar and wind power, he said.

“Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) requires 25 MW of electricity and they pay ₹13 per unit therefore I have asked them to explore solar and wind sources for producing power. A consultant has been appointed for studying the potential of setting up offshore windmills, which could even supply power to Mumbai city,” Gadkari claimed.

On the funding requirements for the project, the Minister said that the money was not in short supply as the profit earned by JNPT last fiscal was over ₹1,000 crore. Other ports are also doing well and plus they can raise low cost loans, he said.

Next month, Gadkari is travelling to Japan for technological demonstrations of producing electricity from multiple sources at one site.

Gadkari said that the port employees are not keen on working in a corporate structure as stated in the Union Budget of 2015. Therefore attempts are being made find alternatives to accommodate them outside the purview of the Companies Act as announced in the Budget for 2015-16.

However, Gadkari refused to elaborate on the alternatives planned for the port employees, despite repeated queries by the media.

In the Budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced the government’s intention to corporatise ports, saying, “ports need to attract investments as well as leverage the huge land resource lying unused with them and to enable us to do so, ports in the public sector will be encouraged to corporatise and become companies under the Company’s Act.”

Managements of major ports, including the largest container port JNPT, have welcomed the move. However, employee unions are opposed to the move and threatened to go on an indefinite strike, which was cancelled following interventions by labour commissioners and a specially constituted panel.