The Visakhapatnam Port Trust, which has set in motion its grandiose plan to expand its capacity from 85 to 124 million tonne in next two years, has obtained green signal from the Ministry of Environment and Forests for taking up three mega projects aimed at modernisation and reducing pollution worth Rs.2,500 crore.
Orders soon
Highly-placed sources have told The Hindu that the MoEF has cleared the projects for which approval orders will be delivered in a week or two. The public hearing for the projects was held almost a year ago by the AP Pollution Control Board amid protests by a section of locals over fear of pollution and the port authorities then clearly stated that modernisation and augmentation of facilities were aimed at putting pollution at bare-minimum.
The VPT shot into fame recently by becoming the first major port in the country to launch work on a 10-MW solar power plant near Visakhapatnam International Airport. The project cost is put at Rs.57 crore.
A senior port official has said work on extension of Visakha Container Terminal, a BOT project developed by JM Baxi Group, modernisation and augmentation of facilities at four-decade-old iron ore handling complex and WQ-1 berth and mechanisation of WQ 7 and 8 will start immediately after receiving formal orders on clearance from MoEF.
JM Baxi Group has bagged the container terminal extension project to add an additional capacity of 5.40 lakh TEU at a cost of Rs.633 crore.
Essar Port will take up modernisation and augmentation of facilities of iron ore handling complex and WQ-1 berth with an investment of Rs.850 crore to increase iron ore handling to 23 million tonne. After lukewarm response to its tender for expression of interest for mechanisation of WQ-7 and 8 to develop it as a multi-purpose cargo terminal, the port decided to develop it through its internal accruals. The construction work has already been awarded to ITD Cementation Ltd.
