Central Government approves construction of new port at Dahanu

On Wednesday, the Central Government approved the proposal for setting up a new major port at Vadhavan. Vadhavan is near Dahanu in Maharashtra. The approximate cost of making this port is being pegged at ₹65,544.54 crore. The decision for the same was made at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"Cabinet gives in-principle approval for setting up a new major port at Vadhavan in Maharashtra. Total cost of the project is likely to be ₹65,544.54 crore," an official statement said.

The statement further added that the Vadhavan port will be developed on landlord model. In the landlord port model, infrastructure is leased to private operating companies or to industries such as refineries, tank terminals, and chemical plants.

Alongside, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) will also be formed with Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) as the lead partner with equity participation equal to or more than 50 per cent to implement the project.

The SPV, the statement said, will develop the port infrastructure, including reclamation, construction of breakwater, besides establishing connectivity to the hinterland, and all the business activities will be undertaken under public-private partnership (PPP) by private developers.

The JN Port is the biggest container port in India and stands 28th in the world with a traffic of 5.1 million TEUs (Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units). Even after the cinstruction of the fourth terminal is completed, it will record a capacity increase up to 10 million TEUs by 2023 and will stand as the 17th largest container port in the world.

Therefore, by developing the Vadhavan port, India intends to break into the countries with top 10 container ports in the world. 

As the containerization of cargo faces an increase in the wake of value-added manufacturing sector, it is important for the government to upgrade our port infrastructure for handling import and export to facilitate manufacturing activity.

Container traffic in the JNPT hinterland is expected to grow from 4.5 MTEUs currently to 10.1 MTEUs by 2022-25 when JNPT's potential will be fully exhausted.