India has approved a new greenfield port project at Vadhavan on the country's western coast in the state of Maharashtra, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday evening.
The announcement was made after the federal cabinet, which is chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved a development of the new port.
The "all-weather, deep-draft" port in the Palghar district on the Arabian Sea will be built at an estimated cost of nearly $9.1 billion and will rank among the world's 10 biggest port designs once it has been completed, a Cabinet statement reads.
The total project cost would include acquiring land, developing core and commercial infrastructure and terminals under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.
Spelling out the details of the draft, the Cabinet highlighted that it would comprise nine container terminals, each of them being 1,000-metre long, four multipurpose berths, a Ro-Ro berth and a dedicated berth of the Indian Coast Guard vessels.
"The project involves the reclamation of 1,448 hectares of area in the sea and the construction of 10.14 km of offshore breakwater and container/cargo storage areas," the statement claims.
The new port would potentially create a cumulative capacity of 298 million metric tons (MMT) annually, including around 23.2 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalents) of container handling capacity, according to the statement.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet underscored that road and rail connectivity would be established between the new port, the existing national highway network, and the upcoming 'dedicated rail freight corridor'.
Around 1.2 million direct and indirect employment opportunities would be created by the new project, which is being developed in line with objectives of 'PM Gati Shakti' plan, a federal infrastructure plan announced by PM Modi in his previous term.
Major International Port
The new port design envisaged creating "state-of-the-art" terminals to handle mega vessels plying on international shipping lines between the Far East, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, the statement said.
The drafct will be constructed by Vadhavan Port Project Limited (VPPL), a special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed by state-backed Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) and Maharashtra Maritime Board (MMB). The JNPA will hold majority stakes of 74% in the new project.