Work pertaining to the Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Kadakola near Nanjangud has commenced and is in full steam consequent to clearance of all formalities including transfer of land.
An official ground breaking ceremony was scheduled to be held in December but was called off due to the Gram Panchayat polls and the code of conduct in place that forbid holding any functions.
But a site inspection was conducted on Monday by the Mysuru MP, Pratap Simha, accompanied by Anup Dayanand Sadhu, Group General Manager, Container Corporation of India (Concor,) which is implementing the project.
Mr. Sadhu said the project will be fully functional in 2 years but the work on warehousing is expected to be completed within the next 10 to 12 months.
The Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) has also completed the transfer of 55 acres of land to Concor which is investing nearly ₹100 crore in the greenfield project.
The project was in the pipeline for almost a decade and though the contract was awarded more than 2 years ago, civil works could not take off due to the protests by the local farmers who sought permanent jobs in lieu of land surrendered by them.
This led to the tender being cancelled and Concor had scrapped the ICD project. But a series of meetings with the farmers by the stakeholders of the region including the elected representatives saw the farmers relenting to pave way for the works to commence. Mr. Simha said he was thankful to the Concor officials who revived the project on learning that the land acquisition issue had been resolved.
Though the project does not come under Mysuru Parliamentary constituency, sources said Mr. Simha was evincing interest in the works as it has a bearing on the industrial activity and exports from Mysuru. A sizeable section of the stakeholders live in Mysuru and this also has a bearing on the industrial and economic development of Mysuru.
The ICD will be a multi-nodal logistic park and will have a catchment area of 200 km to 300 km around Mysuru. This includes not only manufacturing units from Mysuru region but also coffee exporters from Kodagu. The shift of material transportation from road to rail is expected to help decongest the existing highways considerably.
The ICD will provide a one-stop solution to customs clearance, export-import procedures and shipment formalities, and is expected to reduce the logistic cost. The existing project is also in sync with the government’s policy on logistics which aims for a reduction in logistic costs from 16-20 per cent to 10 per cent of the GDP and reduce the dependence on road from existing 60 per cent to 25 per cent while increasing the share of rail from 35 per cent to 60 per cent.
