Visakhapatnam Port Trust Chairman M.T. Krishna Babu said on Friday that investors were eagerly waiting for clarity on special category status and special package for Andhra Pradesh.
Predicting tremendous opportunities for port-led development in AP due to availability of vast coastline and a hinterland of over 500-km linking seven States with freight traffic of cement, alumina, steel and other commodities, he told a meeting conducted here to launch Infrastructure Mission that connectivity problem should be addressed as a topmost priority.
Mr. Krishna Babu, who is also holding additional charge as Chairman of Paradip Port, said Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Gangavaram and Krishnapatnam ports were at present on expansion mode. Visakhapatnam Port with a glorious history of over 80 years is expanding its cargo handling capacity from 80 million tonnes to 125 million tonnes in the next three years.
Stating that the present infrastructure was enough to cope up with the demand, he mentioned as to how the inventory and other costs of ITC Bhadrachalam and other users were going up due to bottlenecks with regard to evacuation. “The railways is not able to supply adequate number of rakes thereby forcing the ports not utilising their capacity fully,” he stated.
He said that the Government was proposing to develop multi-modal logistic hub near Visakhapatnam on the lines of Bhiwandi near Mumbai so as to prevent circuitous movement of white goods thereby reducing their costs.
Mr. Krishna Babu said that power and water would be the biggest challenge for industries in future and opined that the AP Transco and other authorities concerned should plan in advance on how to create the required infrastructure and facilities to ensure uninterrupted power and water supply.
