India's largest cruise terminal starts operations at Mumbai port

Shipping minister Sonowal flagged off cruise ops at Mumbai Terminal

Cruise operations at India’s first international terminal in Mumbai began Monday with shipping minister Sarbananda Sonowal inaugurating the ₹556-crore facility designed to handle 10,000 passengers per day.

 

The Mumbai International Cruise Terminal was developed over an area of 415,000 square feet under the government’s Cruise Bharat Mission.

 

“Equipped with 72 check-in and immigration counters spreading over an area of 207,000 square feet on the first two floors (G+1) while the other two floors (2 + 3) are developed as commercial floors. The newly-inaugurated MICT is designed to handle 1 million passengers every year with an approximate 10,000 passengers per day. It can also handle 5 ships simultaneously, with 11 metres draft and up to 300 metres length,” the shipping ministry said.

 

The project was built in public-private partnership mode, with terminal operator JM Baxi and Co and Ballard Pier Port Private Limited being the industry players to run the terminal.

 

“Today, Mumbai, with its longstanding reputation as a major maritime hub in the world, commenced cruise operations from the Mumbai International Cruise Terminal, providing passengers modern amenities for a better and safer experience. This adds to our existing top class international terminals at Visakhapatnam and Chennai,” Sonowal said at the flagging off ceremony.

 

The minister also inaugurated other infrastructure projects in the state along with a memorandum of understanding for development of a container terminal at the proposed ₹ 76000 crore Vadhavan Port.

 

The Cruise Bharat Mission envisages the development of 10 international sea cruise terminals, creation of 100 river cruise terminals, launch of five marinas along the coastline, seamless integration of more than 5000-km of waterways. The target under the mission is 1 million sea cruise passengers and 1.5 million river cruise passengers by 2029, creating over 400 thousand direct and indirect jobs across the cruise value chain.