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Baalu: Maritime university soon

Staff Reporter

Rs.2,27,258 crore for upgradation of national highways

KOTTAYAM: Union Minister for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways T.R. Baalu has said that a central maritime university will be established in Chennai, with campuses at Kolkata, Mumbai and Visakhapatnam.

A Bill in this regard will be introduced in the coming session of Parliament, he said.

Mr. Baalu was speaking at a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on Development of Major Ports at Kumarakom on Saturday.

The Minister stressed the need for Indian ports to gear up to meet the estimated requirement of 1.5 billion tonnes capacity by 2011-12 and two billion tonnes by 2016-17. The ports were in the process of finalising an action plan for the next seven years as well as a long-term perspective plan, he said.

India's share in the international trade had shot up significantly over the past few years and this was reflected in the cargo traffic at the ports, he said. The target for the current year was 415 million tonnes for the 12 major ports and they had already registered a record 423 million tonnes. The target of 150 million tonnes for 2005-06 for the non-major ports had also been achieved, he said.

The aggregate capacity planned for the major ports at the end of the Tenth Plan period was 470.6 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). This had already been achieved and the major ports had an aggregate capacity of 484 MTPA, Mr. Baalu said.

An ambitious plan to invest Rs.2,27,258 crore for upgradation of national highways in a phased manner was on the anvil, the Minister said. In addition, 10 projects providing road connectivity to ports were under implementation. A project connecting the Kandla Port to a National Highway had been completed, he said.

The Minister said work on developing the International Container Transhipment Terminal at Vallarpadam was on. A container terminal at the Kandla Port was being established on BOT basis. The Chennai Port Trust had issued Letter of Intent to the private operator selected for development of a second container terminal.

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