The Chennai Port Trust has a mega container terminal plan at about the cost of Rs. 4,000 crore and this container terminal, once completed, will be the largest one on the east coast with a capacity of 4 million Twenty Foot Equivalent Units and (TEU) with the capacity to handle very large container vessels. The Union Home Ministry has allowed Adani Ports and Essar Ports to bid for the project, thus enabling the Shipping Ministry to initiate the process of awarding the project. After its earlier rejection of a lonely bid by Adani in 2011, this is the second time the Chennai Port is taking up the award of the project. Adani Ports is the country’s biggest player in the port sector with its core values, as it states, of trust, courage and innovation; the Essar Ports is one of the largest private sector port companies in the country by capacity and throughput. The existing norms require the companies to submit the bids to the ports which, in turn, seek security clearance from the ministries of shipping, home, defence and the external affairs. The implementation of the project can be halted or delayed if the clearance is denied by the Ministry or also if the companies, after winning the bids, refuse to commence the project. Precedents are there in the industry which, of course, need not be repeated all the time.The proposed container terminal is to be developed north of Bharathi Dock at Chennai Port and it will have two new breakwaters and a quay length of two kilometers.
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