Union Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari announced here on Wednesday that the Centre would develop three more major ports — Wadhwan near Dahanu in Maharashtra, Colachel Port near Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu and the Sagar Island Port in West Bengal, tenders for which would be floated by March this year.
Addressing a conference on Coastal Shipping and Inland Waterways organised by ASSOCHAM in Mumbai, Gadkari said that the three project, for which tenders would be floated in the coming eight weeks, would involvement an investment ranging anywhere from Rs18,000 to Rs20,000 crore.
Alluding to the proposed Wadhwan Port, Gadkari said it would be developed as a joint venture port between JNPT and Maharashtra Maritime Board. The project was intended to decongest the over burdened JNPT Port at Nhava Sheva.
Maintaining that development of coastal shipping and inland waterways was a priority area of the NDA Government, Gadkari said the passenger and cargo traffic share in the country would be increased at least up to 15 per cent by 2019. “Currently, the share of passenger and cargo traffic is only 3 per cent to 5 per cent as against the average of 30 per cent to 40 per cent in countries like China, South Korea, United Kingdom, Germany, France etc,” he said.
Gadkari said that development of waterways would reduce the logistic cost enabling India to compete in the global market. “Coastal Shipping and Inland Water Transport is a fuel efficient, environment friendly and cost effective mode, especially for bulk goods. While road transportation cost per km is Rs1.50 and for railways it is Rs1, for waterways it will come down to 25 to 30 paise” he said.
Gadkari said that his Ministry had prepared a vision document on coastal shipping, tourism and regional development with the objective of increasing the share of inland water transport and coastal shipping, development of regional centres to generate cargo for coastal traffic and promotion of cruise tourism.
Gadkari said several initiatives were being taken by his Ministry to promote shipping and said “my Ministry is aiming at addition of 2 per cent to GDP and create 50 lakh employment opportunities”.
The conference deliberated on various issues related to coastal shipping and inland waterways. Additional Secretary in the Ministry Shipping, Shri Gautam Chatterjee, DG Shipping Deepak Shetty, Sunil Kanoria, President, ASSOCHAM were prominent among those present.
Meanwhile, Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) commissioned its Second liquid Chemical Berth at Pir Pau, at Mahul near Chembur. The facility was inaugurated by Gadkari.
The Second Chemical Berth of MbPT is a modern State-of-art facility. It is designed to handle 55,000 DWT vessels carrying liquid bulk chemicals and POl products, which can be upgraded to 65,000 DWT in future. The berth has been developed at a cost is Rs127 crore.