Ennore Port has decided to take up its container terminal plan again and has called for Expressions of Interest from the companies for the project on Public-Private-Partnership model, having terminated its earlier private terminal operator, Bay of Bengal Container Terminal consortium in October for delay in finalizing funds. Mr. M.A. Bhaskarachar, Chairman, Ennore Port Limited (EPL) said that the port would try to make the project attractive and viable based on the responses of the companies. He underscored the great advantage the port has: “We have the advantage of good rail and road connectivity”. Truly, the absence of such a good connectivity proves a great difficulty to the ports in general. It has been planned to develop the proposed container terminal in phases. The terminals should be able to accommodate at least 8,000 twenty foot equivalent unit (TEU) vessels and it must go up to 14,000 TEU in future. The development and the operation of the terminal will follow PPP model on BOT (Build, Operate, and Transfer) basis. The concession period will be for 30 years on the guidelines given in Model Concession Agreement, Government of India Guidelines. A very great point of attraction to the bidders is that the port has already a land to the extent of about 2,200 acres available with good waterfront.Ennore Port as of now has six berths though it has the potential to develop as many as 20 berths with over 100 million tonne capacity every year. The vision of the port is, as is stated in the website: “To develop Ennore Port as a mega port with world class facilities to become the Eastern gateway Port of India”. And, it seems it will.
Great oaks grow from little acorns; mega ports begin from simple plans.
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