Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Karaikal port to get its first vessel today

CHENNAI: The privately built Karaikal port will receive its first vessel on Wednesday when M.V.Beluga Fan Fare, a “project cargo specialist vessel,” docks at the newly built berth in the morning.

The deep sea, all-weather port is being built by Karaikal Port Private Limited (KPPL), at Vanjore near Karaikal, on a Build-Own-Transfer (BOT) basis.

Of the nine berths planned to be built on 600 acres leased from the Puducherry government, two were ready, company officials said.

Phase-I of the project was complete, they said, and the completed berths were being opened for commercial use, they said.

The first phase was completed in a record time of 18 months, a senior government official said. The first two berths, each 213-metre-long, were complete and dredging has been completed to a depth of 9 metre, he said.

M.V. Beluga Fan Fare, a 40-metre-long cargo vessel, would be the first commercial vessel docking at the port, and would carry two Liebherr Harbour mobile cranes of approximately 400 tonnes each as cargo.

Link Shipping South, the company representing Beluga Carriers, said the cranes had a lifting capacity of 104 tonnes.

The Karaikal port, with a total project cost of Rs. 1,400 crore, is intended to primarily handle cement and coal to serve the hinterland in Ariyalur, Perambalur and Tiruchi. The port is also expected to provide an alternative to the Chennai and Tuticorin ports, which are the major ports in the coastline but are separated by long distance.

While the port has been opened for commercial exploitation, the railway line work to connect Nagore to Karaikal was progressing and the port could receive rail connectivity by July, the government official said.

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