Kandla likely to be India's first 'smart port city'

The ambitious plan of Nitin Gadkari, Union minister for road transport, highways & shipping, to develop a smart city around major ports is likely to start with Kandla port, where a smart city will come up in a few years time.

The terms of reference (TOR), or project charter, is currently under preparation for the project, covering Kandla and Gandhidham areas. TOR implies laying out the essential structure and purpose of a project and how the goal could be achieved.

“Each major port will construct one smart city with an expenditure of Rs 3,000-4,000 crore,” Gadkari had said earlier. “These will be green smart cities and you will see all these complete in five years.”

THE CHARACTERISTICS

• Each smart city to be constructed at a cost of Rs 3,000-4,000 crore
   
• Green energy generation to be prioritised in these smart cities
   
• Port water to be recycled, vehicles to be incentivised to use biogas, which will be produced from waste at the ports
   
• Emphasis on SEZs, ship-breaking and ship-building centres, allied port activities in these cities

There are 12 major ports in India - Kandla, Mumbai, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Mormugao, Visakhapatnam, Cochin, Chennai, New Managlore, Ennore, Tuticorin, Paradip and Kolkata - having 260,000 acres of land between them.

“There are a lot of technicalities involved since most of these ports are about 50 year old. The prerequisites of due diligence, hiring consultants, mapping areas etc need be completed before we can tangibly proceed on this project. It would take another couple of years before the plans are firmly in place,” said a senior ministry official involved in the project.

The smart port industrial cities will be built in line with international standards and will have wide roads, advanced townships, special economic zones, greenery, etc. The ports will also have international benchmarking, ship-breaking and ship-building centres, besides other ancillary things, the official added.  According to another official, these port cities will involve consumption of green energy, which will be generated at the ports.

Mumbai and Paradip ports are also having discussions to build smart cities around them. The Mumbai Port Trust has about 750 hectares of land, valued at Rs 46,000 crore.