Cabinet Approves Rs 76,000-Crore Greenfield Deepdraft Vadhavan Port In Maharashtra

The Union Cabinet met for the first time in the third tenure of the Narendra Modi government and approved the construction of an all-weather greenfield deep draft port at Vadhavan near Dahanu, nearly 110 km from Mumbai, in Maharashtra on Wednesday, with a budget of Rs 76,000 crore.

The budget includes the project’s land acquisition costs. Upon completion, Vadhavan Port is poised to rank among the top ten ports globally.

A ‘deep-draft’ describes a port that can accommodate large vessels such as big cargo ships.

The port will be developed by Vadhavan Port Project Ltd.—a joint venture between Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority Ltd., which will hold a 74% stake, and Maharashtra Maritime Board, which will hold the remainder—in two phases under the landlord model, according to government policy.

This will include the development of core infrastructure, terminals and other commercial infrastructure in a public-private partnership mode. The cabinet also approved establishing road connectivity between the port and national highways by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and rail linkage to the existing rail network and the upcoming dedicated rail freight corridor by the Ministry of Railways.

The project, aligned with the PM Gati Shakti programme, is expected to boost economic activity, generating direct and indirect employment opportunities for around 12 lakh individuals.

The port will comprise nine container terminals, each 1,000 metres long, four multipurpose berths, including the coastal berth, four liquid cargo berths, a Ro-Ro berth, and a coast guard berth. The project involves the reclamation of 1,448 hectares of area in the sea and the construction of 10.14 km of offshore breakwater and container/cargo storage areas. The project will create a cumulative capacity of 298 million metric tonnes per annum, including around 23.2 million TEUs of container handling capacity.

The capacity of Indian ports currently stands at 2,604.99 mtpa.

The capacities created will also aid trade flow through the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor and the International North-South Transportation Corridor. The world-class maritime terminal facilities promote public-private partnerships and leverage efficiencies and modern technologies to create state-of-the-art terminals capable of handling mainline megavessels plying on international shipping lines between the Far East, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas, a statement said.