Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust is planning to raise a foreign currency dollar-denominated loan of Rs.3,000 crore to meet its road expansion plan.
JNPT, in consortium with NHAI and CIDCO, is converting a six-lane evacuation corridor into 12 lanes over the next two years. The port trust is expanding the road to make the port, the biggest container handling port in India, more efficient in terms of loading and unloading of cargo which remains stuck for long durations due to congested roads.
The widening of the evacuation corridor is one of the three major bottlenecks that JNP, located at Nhava Sheva near Mumbai, faces along with dredging of the channel from the existing 14 metres to 15 metres and expansion of port capacity.
The company is waiting for the final report on feasibility of capital dredging of the JNP channel, as mentioned, which is expected by August 2015 after which the port trust will invite tenders for the dredging work. The work may also require additional funds of Rs.2,000 crore to Rs.3,000 crore.
Singapore-based PSA is setting up the fourth terminal where construction work is progressing on schedule and is expected to be commissioned in 2018. This will add 5.8 million twenty feet equivalent units (TEU) to the existing capacity, while DP World is expanding its terminal capacity by 0.8 million TEU by the end of 2016.
Dubai-based DP World, which is developing a new container terminal, is expected to partially commission the project by May 15, 2015, thus, adding around 0.3-0.4 million TEU to JNP’s total capacity of 4.5 million TEU.
JNPT is also in the final stages of appointing a contractor for the SEZ for which the master plan is ready. The company will need to invest around Rs.500 crore for setting up the facility while the companies setting up units will bring in another Rs.3,000 crore as investment in the project.
Meanwhile, Jawaharlal Nehru Port handled 63.80 million tonnes of total cargo in 2014-15 against 62.33 million tonnes of cargo handled in the previous year. Of the total, share of containerised cargo was 56.93 million tonnes (89.24 per cent), liquid cargo 6.19 million tonnes (9.70 per cent) and remaining 0.68 million tonnes (1.06 per cent) was miscellaneous cargo in the form of dry bulk and break bulk.
The port handled 4.467 million TEU of container traffic registering growth of 7.33 per cent in the last financial year, which is highest ever container traffic since inception of the port and 56.13 per cent of the total container throughput of the country’s major ports.
