The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, country's biggest container port, is planning a fifth container terminal in the Nhava Island area. The terminal is expected to add a capacity of 8 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to the port for which a pre-feasibility study has already begun.
“It will take us five to six years to float the tender. But prior to that a lot of ground work needs to be done, such as environment impact assessment, negotiating for the land etc,” said Luxman Radhakrishnan, Chairman.
The country's busiest port is, however, still struggling to get on with one of its most ambitious projects — the fourth container terminal and the 330 million tonnes (MT) container berth, both of which continue to be under litigation.
The port is also planning to create a small ship building facility on the Nhava Island area. “The land in the Mazgaon dock area is not being used. We might create a ship building facility there,” he said.
The existing traffic of JNPT is 61 MT (2009-10) projected to grow 130 MT in 2016-17, which would remain at that in 2019-20. The capacity of the port during this period is projected to increase from the existing 64 MT (as on 31-3-10) to 140 MT in 2016- 17 and 142 million tonnes in 2019-20. The major growth in traffic has been projected in respect of container traffic only. “In the next five years we will increase our capacity from 4 million TEUs to 9 million TEUs. The fourth container terminal itself would double our capacity and there would be mechanisation, other projects we will be coming up with,” added Radhakrishnan.
The major development work planned by JNPT includes deepening of channel, construction of berths under build-operate-transfer basis and replacement of old container handling equipment. The major port also reduce the present level of handling 2 per cent to 3 per cent of empty container and instead handle more loaded containers.
JNPT has projected an investment plan of '9,467 crore for 12 projects in phase I (2010-12), '11,851 crore for 10 projects in phase II and '23 crore (2012-2017) for one project in phase III (2017-20).
