The government has trimmed the size of its ambitious National Maritime Port Development Programme (NMDP), owing to a dampening of investor enthusiasm and, in some cases, lack of availability of land. Also, some state governments haven?t shown enough interest when it comes to implementing the projects.
The ministry of shipping has dropped 22 key projects out of the 276 originally identified to increase the capacity of 12 major ports in the country.
The biggest project that has been dropped by the ministry is creation of outer harbour for development of additional port facilities at New Mangalore Port in Karnataka. The harbour, that was to be developed at an investment of Rs 1,325 crore, was to be used by oil firms Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd and ONGC for their captive use.
Other important projects include deepening of channel and lagoon area to create draft of 14 metre, which would have generated business opportunity of Rs 390 crore for the developer, at New Mangalore Port, and building of international ship repair complex at Cochin Port, investing Rs 315 crore.
The dropped projects pertain to Paradip Port in Orissa, Visakhapatnam Port in Andhra Pradesh, Chennai Port in Tamil Nadu, Cochin Port in Kerala, New Mangalore Port in Karnataka, Murmugao Port in Goa and Kandla Port in Gujarat. Karnataka?s New Mangalore Port has lost four projects, the maximum among all states, that would have required investments of Rs 1,783 crore.
?The projects have been dropped because of problems in land availability and unsatisfactory response from firms,? a senior official in the shipping ministry told FE on the condition of anonymity.
NMDP was launched in year 2005 to award 276 projects by March 2012 for expanding the capacity of major ports from around 400 million tonne in 2004-05 with a total investment of Rs 62,231 crore. As per the ministry?s estimates, major ports need a capacity to handle 918 mt by 2013-14. At present, the 12 major ports handle just over 500 mt of cargo.
To avert the possibility of not meeting the targeted goals, the government is trying hard to identify more projects to replace the dropped projects. ?We are currently in the process of identifying projects that could replace the dropped ones so that the overall capacity addition target and the investments remain the same as envisaged in the original programme,? the official said.
