Puri port plans 10 mn. t. captive port at Bali Harichandi

Puri Port Limited, a joint venture between Century Ply and Shyam group, plans to develop a captive deep water port at Bali Haichandi near Puri. The port is proposed to be built in phases with a total estimated investment of about Rs 856 crore.

It will have a cargo handling capacity of 10 million tonne per annum when fully commissioned with the captive cargo consisting of imported timber, veneer, melamine, engineered wooden panel among other things.

The port will handle mixed cargo such as timber logs, heavy machineries, and container cargo like melamine, kraft paper, design paper and limestone. Similarly, the export cargo of the port will consist of finished steel product, plywood, MDF, particle boards, laminates. While the quantity of import cargo will be 1.5 million tonne per annum, an equal volume will be exported to take the total capacity to 3 million tonne per annum in the first phase.

The finished steel goods will be exported in containerized form to the tune of 3 million tonne initially. This is expected to increase to 10 million tonne when the port is likely to be fully operational in 2012-13, According to the projections made by the company, after 4 years of commissioning of the port, the group will handle 5 million tonne cargo. Besides, the developers hope to import additional 1 million tonne of vegetable oil through this port.

In a presentation made before the chief secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy, the company stated that the size of the plywood industry is likely to increase from Rs 7000 crore at present to about Rs 14,000 crore in next 5 years Since, the import of timber is likely to reduce the pressure on domestic forest, the proposal merits serious consideration..

The promoters are managing Jetty operations independently at Falta Export Zone near Kolkata and possess barges and tugs for operations in river Hoogly and sea beach, for which they are dependent on other ports.

The new port will be located 10 kms away from Puri town and it will have draft of 12 metres. Besides, it will have facility to handle bulk carrier (60,000 DWT). IIT Chennai has prepared the technical feasibility report for the port project, sources added.

The design and construction of the port will take about 4 years and is expected to start towards the end of 2009 or first half of 2010.Three berths, each with 3 million tonne cargo handling capacity, are proposed to be set up by the promoters.

The first phase of the project envisages 6 million tonne capacity with 2 berths, which will be completed within 36 months from the date of land acquisition. Similarly, in the second phase, the construction of one additional berth is slated to be completed with the cargo handling capacity increasing to 10 million tonne per annum.

The second phase is slated to be completed after 24 months from the completion of the first phase. However, the fate of the project remains uncertain due to a dissenting note given by the Development Commissioner (DC) about its possible impact on Puri town and the Special Tourim Area (STA) near Puri.

Raising the issue of shoreline protection around tourism area of Puri, the DC is reported to have suggested for commissioning a coastal oceanographic study of protective measures to be taken by the promoters which can be incorporated to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Besides, the state government, as a matter of policy is not pursuing the promotion of captive ports, which may go against the company, sources added.