Andhra Pradesh - Others   

Revival of board for ports likely

Correspondent

Anchorage port needs a facelift, says Minister

Kakinada: Pending Central clearance for the proposed maritime board, the government is now toying with the idea of reviving the ports development board at the State level to take stock of the situation of all State ports and to sort out the problems, according to Minister for Ports, Natural Gases and Infrastructure Development M.V. Ramana Rao.

At a press conference here on Tuesday, he said that creation of a maritime board was delayed as certain policy matters were involved.

The Minister, who visited the age-old anchorage port, the deep-water port and the fishing harbour along with MLAs – Mutha Gopalakrishna and Anisetti Bullebbai Reddy – and ZP chairman Ch.S. Venugopala Krishna, said that the anchorage port needed a facelift to cope up with the growing cargo traffic needs.

Along with construction of new jetties, he said some of the existing jetties that were in a bad shape would be strengthened. As an immediate measure, he said he would be according permission to the authorities to improve the cbuilt built ondition of the old wharf road and the jetties at a cost of Rs.10 lakhs.

Agreeing that shortage of godown space was a major bottleneck for port development, he said the government would take a decision on permitting private parties to construct godowns leasing them the port lands.

The number of railway level-crossings in the port area were causing traffic jams, the Minister said he would expedite the decision on taking up construction of a railway overbridge .

On the need for dredging the commercial canal to pave way for easy movement of steel barges, the Minister said it required Rs. 2 crores for the capital dredging and a decision would be taken shortly.

Since the anchorage port became the hub of rice export and other cargos also increased considerably, he said it was imperative that more steel barges should be added to the existing fleet of 88 barges.

Mr. Ramana Rao said he would sort out the issue across the table with the shipping agents and the steel barge owners soon after the legal hurdles were cleared.

He said modernisation of the port should be taken up to cope with the growing cargo traffic needs.

The government would take a policy decision on this aspect shortly. He said the proposal of the L&T to establish a shipyard here was pending with the government.

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