A meeting regarding establishment of a port in the Subarnarekha river was held under the chairmanship of district Collector K Sudarshan Chakravarthy to disseminate information among the villagers around Chaumukh, the proposed site of the Rs 5,500 crore port project.
The meeting was primarily intended to allay fear among the residents that their fertile land would be acquired for the port project, said an official associated with the project. Besides Chakravarthy, Sub Collector Asish Iswar Patil, project head Anjani Kant and local representatives including the Baliapal block Chairman, were present in the meeting.
It was told by Chakravarthy that not a single acre of private land would be required for establishment of the port. But for construction of road and train lines respectively about 25 acres and 400 acres of private land would be required for acquisition.
For road communication while the existing road would be widened for construction of rail lines from Amarda road to Chaumukh, private land would be required.
And about 8 km stretch embankment would be constructed along the bank of the Subarnarekha river near Chaumukh end to prevent flood and jetties would be constructed to facilitate fishing activities , he said, adding that the port would enhance economic activities and boost all-round growth.
The meeting while was attended by about 250 people; most of them spoke in favour of the port barring a few who expressed fear of losing their land.
It may be noted for the port while a MoU was signed by the Odisha Government with Creative Port Development in 2006, yet the project couldn’t take off after initial works for years due to certain hiccups including defence and CRZ objections.
Again in 2019 a MoU with Tata was signed for the port and the foundation stone was laid by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik ahead of the general elections that year.