25 Ports with 11k Crore Investment to be Awarded By March

Mumbai: Mumbai: In an ambitious move to fast-track port development, the Centre will be awarding as many as 25 projects cumulatively requiring an investment of 11,000 crore in the next three months, top shipping ministry officials said.

"We started off the fiscal with a target to award 42 projects, out of which 17 have already been given.

We want to speed up projects in the sector and will surely award the remaining projects by March," Union Shipping Minister G K Vasan told reporters.

The 42 projects involve a capacity addition of 250 million tonne per annum to the existing 1,200 mtpa and an investment of 15,000 crore, of which 17 projects worth 4,000 crore have already been awarded, a senior official from the Ministry said.

Vasan said this is a big leap for the Ministry, which had averaged up to six projects being awarded annually in the past decade.

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The biggest of the new projects to be awarded will be the 4,000-crore Chennai Mega Container Terminal Project and others like the 1,700-crore Haldia Dock II and Visakhapatnam Port's WQ7 and WQ8, an official said.

The private sector Essar Ports is the only qualified entity with a security clearance for the Chennai Port's project while Adani is yet to be granted one.

The minister, who was speaking to reporters after the conclusion of the 14th Maritime State Development Council meeting here, said keeping with the maritime agenda, which aims to increase capacity to 3,200 mtpa by 2020, the government is now targeting to close FY17 with a 2,600 mtpa capacity.

The thrust on speeding up projects comes after a prolonged phase of criticism of the government for a 'policy paralysis', which critics blame for gloomy growth prospects.

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