Thaindian News

Kochi, Feb 6 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will Feb 11 inaugurate a Rs.3,250 crore International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) at Vallarpadam, off Kochi coast. It is billed as the largest single-operator container terminal in the country. Manmohan Singh laid the foundation stone for the project in February 2005.

The terminal has been developed on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis by the Dubai Port World (DPW), which won a global tender after quoting a gross revenue share of 33.3 percent to the Cochin Port Trust (CPT).

“Investment to the tune of Rs.1,650 crore has come from the central government while the DPW invested Rs.1,600 crore. In the second phase, DPW would bring in Rs.3,000 crore. As things stand, the entire project would be over by 2015,” said CPT chairman N. Ramachandran.

Vallarpadam is situated next to the Bolghatty Island and is about 3.5 km in length and is a km away from the mainland.

“To start with, the quay length of ICTT is 600 meters, which would go up to 1,200 in the next one year. By the end of the second phase, the length would be 1,800 meters. The total number of containers handled in the first phase would be one million. When fully operational, it would touch four million containers annually,” said Ramachandran.

In revenue sharing model, the CPT will get the vessel related income while the cargo income will go to DPW. The BOT is for 30 years.

“As a result of this project, transhipment would take place here and we would not have to rely on ports like Colombo, Dubai and Singapore. This would bring down the cost of freight of a container by $300 and also the transshipment time will come down by almost 10 days,” said Ramachandran.