Cabinet nod to rename Ennore Port as Kamarajar

The Ennore Port in Chennai, one of the 12 major ports in the country, will now be known as Kamarajar Port.

K Kamaraj was a freedom fighter and architect of modern Tamil Nadu.

"The Cabinet has taken a decision to rename Ennore Port Ltd (EPL) as Kamraj Port Ltd (KPL)," a source said after the meeting here.

The port, which started functioning in 2001, is a schedule B Mini Ratna Company. The capacity of the Port at present is 31 million tonnes (MT) and has six berths including three for coal and one for iron ore.

During the last fiscal, the port handled 17.88 MT cargo. For the year 2013-14, traffic throughput target for EPL stood at 24 MT.

Given the increase in traffic, EPL has targeted augmenting the capacity to about 37 MT by the end of 12th Five Year Plan, ie by March 2017.

The projects awarded for capacity augmentation in the port include development of LNG Terminal at an investment of Rs 4,512 crore and development of a container terminal entailing Rs 1,270 crore expenditure. EPL has also proposed to raise Rs 500 crore by issuing Tax-Free Bond and mopped up Rs 123 crore on the first day of the launch on February 18.

The Port has seen export of 449,720 automobile units till December, including by automobile manufacturers like Nissan, Ford and Ashok Leyland from Chennai, Toyota from Bangalore and Honda from Delhi.