The Andhra Pradesh Government has announced its intention to develop several non-major ports along the coast and one of them is Machilipatnam port in Krishna district, which is the nearest port to the State capital. Machilipatnam is in fact the district headquarters of Krishna district. 

The work on the port has been hanging fire for several years and it has made no headway for one reason or the other. The foundation stone for the port was laid by the late Dr. Y.S Rajasekhara Reddy during the Congress rule way back in 2008 and since then there has been no progress.

Initially, the project was awarded by the Rajasekhara Reddy Government to Maytas, of the Satyam group, and after the Satyam scandal broke out, the contract was scrapped and the project was awarded to the Navayuga Engineering Company Ltd. Even after that not much progress could be made and doubts were expressed whether the project would take off.

The port and the port-based industries, it is estimated, would require 30,000 acres or so near Machilipatnam and Bantumilli. of which 10,000 acres is Government land. The Government would have to acquire roughly 20,000 acres of private land. Initially, the Government issued notification a few days ago for acquisition of 14,500 acres of private land for the deep water port.

There is resistance from farmers and fishermen in many villages to the land acquisition, but the State Government wants to win them over by resorting to land pooling system as it did in the case of acquisition of lands for the capital at Amaravathi. 

sarma.rs@thehindu.co.in

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