NEW DELHI, Feb 6 (NNN-BERNAMA) — India will develop a large deepwater port on its western coast with an investment of more than US$9 billion.
The port will be built at Vadhavan near Dahanu in the state of Maharashtra by a joint venture led by Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), the operator of India’s largest container port at Navi Mumbai.
The total cost of the project is likely to be about 655 billion rupees (US$9.1 billion), the government said in a statement on Wednesday.
“There is a need for a deep draft port that will accommodate the largest container ships in the world and also cater to the spillover traffic from JNPT port once its planned capacity of 10 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent container units) is fully utilised,” it said.
With an annual volume of 5.1 million TEUs, JNPT ranks as the world’s 28th largest container port and the government expects the facility’s expanded capacity to be fully utilised by 2025.
Besides catering to the projected container trade growth, the proposed Vadhavan port’s natural draft of about 20 metres will allow it to handle large vessels of 16,000-25,000 TEU capacity.
JNPT has a draft of 15 metres and Mundra Port in Gujarat, the country’s second-largest container facility, can handle ships that require a draft level of up to 16 metres.
