Union Budget 2013: Pearls for Tuticorin port

CHENNAI: Finance minister P Chidambaram announced big plans for V O Chidambaranar Port at Tuticorin in the Union Budget on Thursday. The port will get a new outer harbour that will add 42 million tonnes of capacity. The port currently has a capacity of 27.04 million tonnes. The expansion is expected to benefit garment manufacturers from the western region, who ship their products through this port.
“A new outer harbour will be developed at the VOC port through public-private partnership (PPP) at an estimated cost of 7,500 crore,” Chidambaram said in his Budget speech in Parliament. The outer harbour will have nine berths with a draft, or depth, of 14m, and will be able to handle bigger ships. “This will increase the competitiveness of the port and the export-import trade of Tamil Nadu and India will increase, resulting in industrialization in the region,” said a statement from VOC port.
The project includes construction of breakwater, berths and jetties, dredging and reclamation, establishment of road and railway connectivity, and installation of mechanical handling equipment. “A study will be conducted for nine months after which we will start looking for PPP investors and begin construction of the breakwaters,” said port chairman S Natarajan.
I-Maritime Consultancy Private Limited will be responsible for preparing a detailed project report for development of the outer harbour. After getting government and environmental clearance, the work on the outer harbour will be executed in phases. The project is expected to commence in the next financial year and will be commissioned in 2019-20 , the statement said.
In addition to this, the port is also working on a range of projects like conversion of berth VIII as a container terminal , construction of north cargo berth III, north cargo berth IV, two shallow water berths, and upgradation of mechanical cargo handling equipment to enhance the port’s capacity to 61.78 million tonnes. The 300-crore project to convert berth VIII into a container terminal is scheduled to be completed in December 2014. This will bring an additional capacity of six lakh TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units).
Tirupur Exporters’ Association president A Sakthivel said the move will help garment exporters in western Tamil Nadu. “This will benefit Tirupur exporters as 90% of the garments we produce are exported through Tuticorin port,” he said. Apart from textiles, the port also handles coir products, chilli, cashew kernels and dry flowers for export, and raw cashew , machinery, plywood, raw cotton, waste paper and iron scrap for import.
Union Budget 2013 > Budget news 2013 > Economic Survey