Odisha
Paradip Port Trust in Odisha has announced a capital expenditure plan of Rs. 16,000 crore on expansion that includes hiking the capacity of the port from 108.5 million tpa currently to 270.50 million tpa by 2023. The projects will be developed through private sector participation — Rs. 15,100 crore through PPP and Rs. 900 crore through internal accruals. The projects would be developed over a period of seven to nine years. This was disclosed by S.S. Mishra, Chairman, Paradip Port Trust, at a conference in Mumbai recently.
The expansion plan entails the development of western dock, offshore breakwater, iron ore berth and mechanisation of central quay at Paradip Port.
The western dock complex, estimated to cost Rs. 6,000-6,500 crore, will comprise six berths. All the berths in the western dock as well as the multipurpose berth, container berth, iron ore berth and oil berth will have a draft of 17.1m and will be able to accommodate cape size vessels of 1,85,000 DWT. The port trust has earmarked 94 acres for stack yard to facilitate efficient operations at these berths.
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The cargo considered for the proposed western dock would be coal imports (both thermal and coking), coastal movement of coal (outward movement), fertiliser and containers. The port trust aims to develop these berths with through private sector participation either as a captive facility or as a common user facility under BOT route. Already one of the fertiliser majors has shown interest in one of the captive berths in the western dock. The port trust has initiated the process for seeking environment clearance for this project.
The construction of southern oil jetty of 10 million tpa capacity is in progress and is likely to be commissioned during the current year.
The port trust is also planning mechanisation of EQ I, II & III to increase capacity to 30 million tpa and mechanisation of CQ I & II to increase capacity to 20 million tpa. Besides, it is developing a new iron ore berth of 10 million tpa capacity, a new coal berth of 10 million tpa, a multipurpose clean cargo berth of 5 million tpa and an LNG terminal of 10 million tpa capacity. An inland container depot is also in the pipeline.
Discussing the financial performance for 2013-14, S.S. Mishra said that the port achieved a total revenue of Rs. 1,068 crore (y-o-y growth of 34 per cent), operating revenue of Rs. 915 crore (y-o-y growth of 38 per cent), operating surplus of Rs. 365 crore (y-o-y growth of 50 per cent), surplus after tax of Rs. 233 crore (y-o-y growth of 24 per cent), operating ratio of 59.99 per cent and utilisation of planned expenditure to the tune of 95.43 per cent, thus surpassing the financial targets set by the Ministry of Shipping for the last fiscal.
Paradip is one of the major ports of India. Located on the east coast, the port is situated 210 nautical miles south of Kolkata, West Bengal, and 260 nautical miles north of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. The port has seen a steady growth in traffic, maintaining a compound annual growth rate of 8.5 per cent over the last seven years. It handled an all-time record cargo of 68 million tonnes in 2013-14, registering a growth of 20.25 per cent, and ranked second among all the 13 major ports of India in terms of volume of traffic.
