The road leading to Panambur beach from the National Highway 17 will be concreted by the New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT) from its corporate social responsibility funds.
NMPT Chairman P. Tamilvanan told presspersons here on Wednesday that the project estimation was under way and details would be available in a month's time. He said, the NMPT had already laid the road with footpath. Deputy Commissioner V. Ponnuraj had suggested to the NMPT to concrete the Panambur beach road, he said.
The Tannirbhavi Road passing by the port, already concreted by the port trust, was inaugurated last year.
The port was continuously spraying water within and outside the port to prevent pollution from iron ore fines. About 1,200 trees were planted in the port area during 2009-10. A separate pollution control cell, headed by a marine engineer, had been put in place and the port was trying to get ISO 14001 certification for its environment management activities, he said.
He said the port had installed traffic signal lights at Panambur Circle at a cost of Rs. 8.62 lakh. The Port conducted a free medical camp in which about 300 patients suffering from various diseases were given free medicines in 2009-10.
The port had taken up total computerisation to increase efficiency. It would implement ERP Solutions — the computer-based Enterprise Resource Planning system — to manage internal and external resources, including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources, by December, he said.
Container traffic
Mr. Tamilvanan reiterated that NMPT would attract more goods as it had undertaken many infrastructure projects, including setting up of a container terminal at a cost of Rs. 276 crore. The Jawaharal Nehru Port in Mumbai was congested for container handling. This could work in favour of the Mangalore port. Besides, the South Western Railway had been requested to provide more goods wagon for Mangalore-Hassan section to increase goods movement to the port from the interior Karnataka.
