Chennai:
Kamarajar Port will help develop Puducherry Port by investing in cargo
infrastructure and leisure and tourism activities.
“Four consultants are in race to develop a detailed project report in
this regard. We will be selecting one of them in the next 45 days. The
DPR will be submitted to Puducherry government for acceptance,” said a
top Kamarajar Port official on the sidelines of Annual Press Meet here
on Saturday.
Interestingly, the DPR would also include the proposed ferry services
from Ennore to Mahabalipuram and Puducherry.
“The ferry service would happen pending official confirmation from the
state government. Tamil Nadu Tourism is keen to partner with us and we
already held talks with top officials in this regard,” said the
official.
Interestingly, the ferry services will also link Nagapattinam,
Rameshwaram and Kanyakumari. “This will be done phase-wise,” he said.
It is learnt that there is also a plan to help to make Puducherry Port
a small hub to ease congestion along East coast Road by catering to
Villupuram and Cuddalore districts.
Currently, Puducherry government has started dredging operations to
enable small ships carrying cargo to ply upto Ennore Barge Chennai.
Interestingly, Puducherry port will be handling only clean cargo and
liquid cargo like edible oils, vegetable oils and machineries.
Earlier, Kamrajar Port chairman and managing director of Kamarajar
Port M A Bhaskarachar said that Kamarajar plans to increase the port
capacity from the present 30 million tonnes to 81 million tonnes by
2017.
He also said that pre tax profit of Kamarajar Port is Rs 421.47 crore
as against Rs 410.19 crore in the corresponding period previous year.
He said the operating income of port registered a growth of 12.3 per
cent from Rs 501.93 crore to Rs 563.64 crore.
Bhaskarachar also said that the work on the first phase of container
terminal developed by Adani Ennore Container Terminal with a handling
capacity of 1.4 million TEUs at a cost of rs 1270 crore would be
finished before the target date of January 1, 2017.
“We have achieved 30 per cent physical progress as against planned
progress of 14pc till March 31, 2015 and the SPV is optimistic in
starting the operations much before in first quarter of 2016 by
accelerating construction of facilities,” said Bhaskarachar.
Bhaskarachar also said that Kamarajar port is offering 50 per cent
rebate for handling charges per tonne of cargo if it is above 10
million tonnes.
He also said that by next year the 647 acres of land acquired from
salt department would be put in use.
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