Gadkari assures support for sea port at Sagar Islands

‘Centre to allocate adequate funds for it’

December 24, 2014 07:55 am | Updated 07:55 am IST - Kolkata

Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari with Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee during a function in Kolkata on Tuesday. File photo

Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari with Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee during a function in Kolkata on Tuesday. File photo

The Centre would allocate adequate funds for construction of a deep-sea port and a petroleum storage plant near the port, said Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Nitin Gadkari after a meeting with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at the State Secretariat here on Tuesday.

“The Kolkata Port Trust and Government of West Bengal will form a joint venture to develop the Bhorsagar deep sea port, and Union Government will provide Rs. 12,000 crores for this project. This port will be connected by an underground tunnel,” the Union Minister said.

Stating that an MoU will be signed to float a joint venture for the deep sea port on February 7, 2015, Mr Gadkari said that the Government of West Bengal has already invested Rs. 170 crores for the Bhorsagar deep sea port at Sagar Islands in Sundarbans, which the Centre may pay back to the State government.

On the new road projects in the State, the Minister said if issues pending to land acquisition are sorted out, the Centre will fund the construction of 294 km of roads in Bengal.

“I expect that the land acquisition issue will be solved within a couple of months,” he said at an event later in the evening.

BJP rally Meanwhile, Mr. Gadkari participated in a rally called by the State unit of the BJP where he claimed that despite potential investments, development is not coming to Bengal.

“We will develop Bengal under the leadership of Narendra Modi at Centre. We don’t want to mix politics with governance,” he added.

Addressing the rally, BJP national secretary Siddharth Nath Singh advised Mamata Banerjee to resign ‘rather than live in constant fear of losing power’.

“Neither am I an astrologer, nor do I have control of the CBI. But what can I do? The acts of your (Banerjee’s) party leaders are such that they have to go jail,” he told the gathering.

State BJP president Rahul Sinha dared Ms Banerjee to advance the 2016 Lok Sabha polls, stating that the BJP is prepared is approach the people.

“Hold the Assembly elections in 2015. The BJP is ready,” Mr. Sinha said.

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