Construction of a new deep sea port on the Machilipatnam coast is set to begin on Thursday, 155 years after the historic Masula port was destroyed in a giant cyclonic storm in 1864.
The Andhra Pradesh government aims to revive the port to its former glory, as it has a lot of potential to emerge as a container hub on the east coast, with voyage time to South-east Asian and Asia Pacific regions being considerably lesser than from the west coast.
Glorious past
The Masula port was an important trading centre for the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British at the start of the 17th Century, with ships sailing from here to Southeast Asia and Europe in the early 1620s.
The government had submitted a feasibility report to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in 2015. Environmental and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance issued for the first phase is valid till November 2019.
Navayuga Group won the bid to develop the port on a BOOT (Build-Own-Operate-Transfer) mode under the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) method, in which the State government provides land of about 5,000 acres.
Roadmap
The port is expected to begin functioning by 2021, and the first phase of the port will comprise four berths with operations spread over 1,692 acres of land on the coast. Estimated port traffic for the 2021-22 financial year is 79.90 MTPA of various cargo and 20 MTPA of container cargo.
Iron ore, container cargo, crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) will be the immediate imports and exports at the new port. In the second phase, 15 more berths will be developed on 3,400 acres of land.
In 2008, then Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy laid the foundation stone for the port. “The Masula port is a jewel on the East Coast. It will open up investment opportunities,” Machilipatnam Urban Development Authority vice-chairman P. Wilson Babu told The Hindu .
In his maiden visit to Machilipatnam since 2014, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu will perform bhumi puja near Manginapudi lighthouse, commencing dredging works at the port on Thursday.
