India's Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust plans to spend US$1.78 billion over the next five years to develop its infrastructure.
In addition to developing its fourth terminal, the country's largest container port plans to extend one terminal, deepen and widen its harbour channels, buy rail-mounted quay and rubber-tyred gantry cranes.
To start with, the port plans to widen and deepen the harbour channel draught to 14m from 12.5m now. The project is expected to cost $203 million, chairman Shahzad Hussain said.
He said the port does not have a problem with funds. There are several banks who are interested and the funds would be a mix of own resources and debt.
The western India-located port with its three terminals handled 2.30 million TEUs in the first seven months of 2007, 26.4 percent more than in the same period last year.
Jawaharlal Nehru Port operates one terminal, a second terminal is run by Dubai Ports World and a third jointly operated by APM Terminals, which is part of AP Moller-Maersk, and state-run Container Corp of India .
The Indian government has announced a $12.4 billion plan to upgrade 12 major ports to meet the rising volume of trade. Cargo handled by these ports has risen 9.5 percent a year over the last three years.
Jawaharlal Nehru Port plans to buy three rail-mounted quay cranes by April 2008 and six rubber-tyred gantry cranes by 2009 to upgrade its container handling infrastructure.
It takes about 159 hours for each container to move out of the port, which is far higher than that in developed nations and adds to transportation costs.
Of this, eight percent of the total dwell time, right from the time of arrival to clearance of cargo, is taken up by the Customs authorities.
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