In a bid to complete its target for the XIth Five-Year Plan and speed up port infrastructure development, the shipping ministry has decided to award over 20 major port development projects in the current fiscal.

After the UPA returned to power, the ministry, headed by G K Vasan, has revised the number of projects to be awarded from the figure of 15. This would mean bringing in investment of over Rs 25,000 crore in the ports sector under the public-private-partnership (PPP) mode.

The ministry’s target for awarding port development projects under the XIth plan is around 54. “Of these, we are yet to award over 40 projects. The ministry has therefore decided to bid out a bulk of the projects this year to be able to meet its target by the end of the Five-Year Plan,” a government official said.

Some of the major projects that are slated for bidding this fiscal include the development of the fourth container terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) at an estimated investment of Rs 6,700 crore, and a mega-container terminal at Chennai with an investment of Rs roughly Rs 3,600 crore.

“Most of the other projects are related to the development of multi-purpose cargo berths and mechanisation of cargo handling. There is one proposal to develop an international cruise terminal at a cost of Rs 375 crore at Cochin. Another project on the list is the development of single-point mooring at Kandla with an investment of around Rs 700 crore,” the official said.

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