The western coast of India is all set to get a new port. On Wednesday, the Union cabinet had approved a major port at Vadhvan near Dahanu in Maharashtra. This port will be among the top ten container ports in the world when complete, Unmesh Sharad Wagh, the chairman of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) said on Thursday.
The port will also help in reducing the traffic congestion in and around Mumbai and neighbouring Thane, as a lot of the goods traffic that comes from the north will head to this new port that will be located in the north of the country's financial capital, instead of trucks having to travel through the Mumbai Metropolitan region to the existing port of JNPA towards the south of the city, he said.
The port is to be developed by Vadhvan Port Project Ltd, a special purpose vehicle, in which JNPA will hold 74 per cent stake and Maharashtra Maritime Board 26 per cent.
The total project cost estimated for the Vadhvan port is Rs 76,220 crore. The port infrastructure comprises of nine container terminals, each 1,000 meters in length, four multi-purpose berths, four cargo berths, a Ro-Ro (roll-on roll-off) berth, a coastal cargo berth and a coast guard berth.
Around 1,448 hectares of offshore is to be reclaimed and 10.14 km of breakwater, container/cargo storage areas will be constructed for this project.
According to Wagh, today nearly 65 per cent of the total container traffic in the country is routed through two ports—Mundra and JNPA—and there was a need for a new port on the western coast since both the ports were already working at high capacity.
"At present, JNPA is working at 80 per cent of its capacity. Our capacity at present is 7.7 million TEU and we are doing 6.5 million TEU. Mundra is also working 80 per cent of capacity. In ports sector 70 per cent capacity is to be considered 100 per cent. So, we are already doing more than our capacity. We are adding 2.4 million TEU next year. Mundra will also add certain capacity in next 10 years. But, with this additional capacity also we will be full in 2029," noted Wagh.
This all-weather port in Vadhvan will augment the national container handling capacity by 23.2 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) and will facilitate calling of mega size container ships, capable of carrying 24,000 TEUs.
The port will be built in two phases, with 10 million TEU capacity to be added by 2029 in the first phase, according to Wagh.
This port has faced a lot of opposition, especially from the local fishermen and villagers who feared their livelihoods will be impacted. However, Wagh claimed that a lot of those issues were being addressed. For instance, he claimed that there will be no hindrance to fishing barring a 30 square km area and fishermen who operate in that area will be given adequate compensation. He also mentioned that since it was an off-shore project, there was no land acquisition needed, barring for the road and rail connectivity and therefore there will be no displacement.
Importantly, Wagh pointed that this project will create direct employment for more than 10 lakh people and indirect employment opportunities will be ten times more.
"Almost 90 per cent of the blue collared jobs will be provided for people in the Palghar district only," he said.
More than 50,000 youths would be provided with required training and they have tied up with various institutes available there.