Govt awards Rs 479-cr project for Paradip Port

The project has been given to a consortium led by Essar Shipping Ports and Logistics on 31 per cent revenue sharing basis, Shipping Ministry officials said.

The berth would have a capacity of 10 MT per annum and has to be constructed within 36 months from the date of the award.

The project at Paradip is the third major public-private partnership project in the last two months, the other two being Rs 591-crore iron ore berth at Paradip Port and Rs 252 crore coal berth project at the Goa Port.

While the iron ore berth at Paradip has gone to Noble Group-led consortium, the project at Marmugao Port in Goa has been given too Mundra Ports and SEZ Ltd and Adani Enterprises Ltd.

The Shipping Ministry has completed 43 capacity expansion projects for major ports and work is going on for another 69 out of 276 such schemes under the National Maritime development Project (NMDP).

NMDP will take the combined capacity of the 12 ports to 1,016 million tonnes by 2012.
Of the total revised estimates of Rs 62,231.52 crore for NMDP, Rs 16,603.36 crore will be incurred on the 69 ongoing projects while the Ministry has approved 24 more projects for Rs 7,568.61 crore.

Of the 276 projects under the programme, a maximum 38 projects are for Vishakhapatnam port for an addition of 44.31 MT capacity.