Chennai Port Trust to revive three major projects, after 9 months!
Revival of ‘outer harbour project’ is the 1st to take off. A proposal to this effect will be placed at its board of trustees meeting scheduled for August 6.Rs.3,686-crore project was postponed three times in the last few years owing to the reasons – such as poor response and low-revenue share offered by the bidders. This resulted in the project cost – escalating to Rs.5,090 crores.
To make the project attractive, CPT renamed the project as outer harbour project that would handle different types of commodities.
A Trustee said that in the first two rounds, Essar Ports and Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone evinced keen interest in constructing the mega container terminal. But they lost interest due to lapse of time. CPT has to move fast to revive this project as Ennore Port is likely to start the container operations within two years.
Converting the coal berth of Jawahar Dock into a cargo terminal, though was a failure – in the past years, CPT is planning to remodel it. Jawahar Dock has a 12-meter draught and it can be used for handling multi-purpose cargoes such as steel, coil and logs, said a CPT official.
CPT is also planning to develop dry dock facility at its century-old boat basin and timber pond.
