Great Nicobar Island: Centre prepares for Rs 41,000 crore international transhipment port at Great Nicobar Island

A mega International Container Transhipment Port (ICTP) is going to be set up at the Galathea Bay of Great Nicobar Island of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. An official statement issued on Friday said that bids for developing this Rs 41,000 crore are being called from Saturday onwards.

The first phase is targeted for completion in 2028 at a handling capacity of 4 million Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs). A TEU is an approximate unit of measure used for cargo containers. The capacity of the port will increase to 16 Million TEUs in the ultimate stage of development.

“Progressive steps are being taken by the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The transhipment terminal will offer top notch facilities to the stakeholders in the maritime trade sector,” Sarbananda Sonowal. Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways told ET in New Delhi.

“The estimated cost for Phase 1 of the proposed transhipment port is around Rs 18,000 crore which includes the construction of breakwaters, dredging, reclamation, berths, storage areas, building and utilities, procurement and installation of equipment and development of port colony with core infrastructure is going to be developed with the government support,” the statement said.

It is also planned that Public Private Partnership (PPP) will be encouraged for this project via Landlord mode. The PPP Concessionaire shall have the flexibility to develop storage area, container handling equipment and other infrastructure based on concessionaire’s own market and business assessment subject to the Minimum Guaranteed Traffic.

The Concessionaire would be awarded a long-term PPP concession of 30 to 50 years (based on requirement), shall be responsible for the provision(s) of port services and shall have the rights to levy, collect and retain charges from port users.

In another development, Sonowal inaugurated the National Logistics Portal-Marine, a Single Window Logistics Portal to reduce the logistics cost for exporters. Addressing the gathering, he said that NLP (marine) is an open platform that allows the coexistence of multiple service providers to offer EXIM-related services independently or by combining different connectivity options.