All 12 ports to open their doors to schools from April, says Union Shipping Minister

Chennai:

Indian ports would soon be open to school children from April this year and students would be able to access it once a week, according to union Shipping Minister G K Vasan.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function to mark the signing of an memorandum of understanding signed between the Ennore Port and Ford India on export of cars, the minister said all the 12 ports in the country would be thrown open to schools from April this year.

“We had planned the initiative on January this year but now it will be implemented from April. The students won’t be charged any fees,” he said.

“We have already launched a pilot in Mumbai. This initiative will help spread awareness among the children about the ports and how they function,” the minister said.

He said the port authorities during the initiative will ensure 100 per cent safety of school students. Interestingly, the initiative is only for schools and not for colleges. The schools have to register with the port authorities to get access to the ports, the minister added.

Earlier speaking on the occasion of signing of agreement between Ennore Port and Ford India, the minister said that 4.49 lakh automobile units have been exported from ennore Port since September 2010, inclusive of the vehicles belonging to Nissan, Ashok Leyland from Chennai, Toyota from Bangalore and Honda from Delhi. He said Ennore Port’s agreement with Ford envisages a tie-up for export of cars by Ford and providing facilities by ennore Port Limited for a period of 10 years.

He also said that Ennore Port is going to sign an agreement with Indian Oil corporation for setting up LNG import storage and regasification terminal port at an estimated investment of Rs 4500 crore. The capacity of the LNG terminal is 5 million metric tonnes per annum and the project is likely to be commissioned by 2016-17.