The state govt plans to revive the old port in Cuddalore, dormant for about four decades. Around 112 acres of the port about 180km south of Chennai will be used to set up various shipping and industry related facilities.

The Tamil Nadu Maritime Board, which plans to develop a green field port near the old Cuddalore port with an initial investment of Rs 1,500 crore - Rs 2,000 crore, on Thursday floated a tender to select a firm to operate, maintain and market projects to be established in the existing port.

The bidder can execute projects for creating facilities such as logistics and distribution hub, warehouse and storage, industrial and manufacturing, solar and wind farm, cruise terminal, shipyards dry docks, marine equipment manufacturing, handling cargo including coal, fertilizer, cement, container and clean cargo. The concession period would be for 40 years, the Request for Proposal (RPF) said.

Under the PPP model, the bidder can create one facility or club a few projects together. "Our focus is to utilise the port for projects and make it active. This is part of our strategy to revive the port, which has remained non-operational. The value of the projects proposed by the bidders will be known only after the bids are opened, M Vallalar, vice-chairman and CEO of Tamil Nadu Maritime Board, told TOΙ.

Attempts in the past to revive the existing port at Cuddalore didn't take off. One of TN's oldest ports that was operational till 1980s, it lost its relevance after new ports were developed in Ennore and Kattupalli and those in Chennai and Tuticorin catered to imports and exports.

Tamil Nadu Maritime Board has enhanced infrastructure at Cuddalore port with a 160 crore investment including construction of two wharfs for 240m and dredging the channel to a depth of nine metres to help handle 15,000 tonnes-20,000 tonnes cargo vessels, said official sources.

Source: ET Infra. Com

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