The 126-year-old Chennai port is expanding in a big way by building a second container terminal and constructing a deep-water terminal to handle larger vessels. It is set to add facilities to handle mother vessels and seven million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs). Port chairman K Suresh spoke to FE?s Joseph Vackayil about the expansion projects of the Chennai port to facilitate the handling of such a large volume of containers. Excerpts:
•How does the Chennai port currently function as a container terminal?
The Chennai port, with a business plan designed by Deloitte, aims to be a clean cargo port, with containers as its mainstay. It can handle over 7 million TEUs by 2013. Currently, it has a container terminal operated by DP World and handled 1.14 million TEUs in 2008-09. The second container terminal developed and operated by PSA-SICAL is just operational. Together, they can handle up to three million TEUs a year. We have also finalised plans for a mega terminal, with a continuous quay length of 2 km and 22 metre alongside depth to handle ultra-large container ships of 15,000 TEUs capacity and 400 metre length. Estimated to cost Rs 3,686 crore, this will be the first deep-water terminal of its kind in India and should be ready by 2012-13.
•What are the plans to evacuate the additional cargo that these terminals would attract?
We plan to modernise the harbour facilities and strengthen the internal road and rail network by investing Rs 200 crore. The northern road corridor to the National Highway ?s network from the port is being expanded under the Chennai-Ennore Road Connectivity project at an estimated cost of Rs 600 crore. On the southern road corridor, a 19 km-long elevated expressway from Chennai port to Maduravoyal to join NH-4 is being constructed. It is estimated to cost Rs 1,655 crore, built by Soma Enterprises Ltd, Hyderabad. The port and the state government will equally share the cost of land acquisition and rehabilitation and resettlement of the project-affected families, spending Rs 310 crore. There is also a proposal to increase the rail share of container from the present 7% to 30%.
•The Chennai port is the largest car export terminal in the country now; any expansion plan?
The port handled 2.49 lakh cars in 2008-09, through 65 car carriers that called on the port, which has the best Ro-Ro terminal in the country. Now, Hyundai is the major exporter of cars through the port, but requests have been received from Toyota , Ford and Mahindra for export facilities for cars through the port. We expect to handle about five lakh cars by the end of this decade.
A modern car terminal is being planed with a 300 metre-long Ro-Ro berth developed by the port and a multi-level car park over a land area of 10,000 sq metre for storing up to 5,000 cars at a time. It is being constructed on BOT basis at an estimated cost of Rs 80 crore.
•What are the proposals for developing a cruise shipping terminal?
About two to three international cruise vessels call at the port every month. In addition, we have regular calls between this port and the Andaman port for non-cruise passengers. The Centre has approved its cruise shipping policy in last September to carve a prominent space in world tourism and to showcase the country as a major source and destination of world tourism. Chennai is one of the ports identified by the government for setting up cruise terminals under public-private partnership mode.
•Any plans to create facilities outside the port to support the massive expansion?
We propose to transfer many of the cargo storing, loading and clearing formalities to outside the port by developing an integrated dry port and multi-modal logistics hub. For this the port has sought 100 acre from the Tamil Nadu State Industrial Development Corporation for creating this facility near the proposed Sriperumbudur SEZ.
