BHUBANESWAR: Construction of Subarnarekha port, off the coast in Balasore district, will start soon as major hurdles have been removed. Informing this in a written reply to a question from Aswani Kumar Patra (BJD) in the Assembly, Minister of State for Commerce and Transport Nrusingha Charan Sahu said,
“Developer of the port - Subarnarekha Port Private Limited (SPPL) has obtained environmental clearance from the Ministry. The State Government, meanwhile, has transferred 692.68 acres of land to the port developers,” he said.
Sahu said the Defence Ministry, which had earlier raised some objections over construction of the port, has given its nod for development of a port at the chosen site.
The Subarnarekha river mouth is envisaged to be developed as a commercial port on the build, own, operate, share and transfer (BOOST) model. The MoU for the port project was signed in 2006.The Minister said though 961.18 acres of land is required for the port at Subarnarekha, the State has provided 692.68 acres to the developers. About 128.80 acres of government land provided for the port is under encroachment. The Balasore Collector has been asked to retrieve such encroached land, he said.
Sahu said 139.7 acres of land located close to the project site has been identified as ‘Bhudan’ (donated) land. “Arrangements are being made to exchange it with ‘Bhudan Yagna Samiti’ so that 139.7 acres of land could be utilised for construction of the port,” he said.Tata Steel has signed an agreement with Chennai-based Creative Port Development Private Limited (CPDPL) to pick up 51 per cent equity in the port project from the original promoters. CPDPL, promoted by two technical entrepreneurs, Ramani Ramaswamy and Ramaswamy Rangarajan, had entered into a concession agreement with Odisha Government in January 2008 to develop the Subarnarekha Port in Balasore district as an all-weather deep-draft facility.
As per the original concession agreement, the port would have an initial capacity of 10 million tonne per annum (mtpa) which was to be scaled up to 40 mtpa in 10 years. Odisha has a major port at Paradip and two others at Dhamra and Gopalpur. At least 12 non-major ports, including the one at Subarnarekha, are in the pipeline, the Minister said.
Accidents claimed 21,549 lives in 5 yrs
Bhubaneswar: Minister of State for Commerce and Transport Nrusingha Charan Sahu on Saturday said in the Assembly that 21,549 people have died in road accidents in the State during five-year period between 2013 and 2017. In a written reply to a question from Tara Prasad Bahinipati (Cong), the Minister said 51,257 road accidents occurred during the period. Highest number of 4790 persons died in 10,855 accidents in 2017 followed by 4463 deaths in 10532 accidents in 2016. The Minister said 4062 persons had died in 9680 accidents in 2013 while 9648 road accidents had taken the lives of 3931 persons in 2014. He said 4303 persons had died in 2015 in 10,542 accidents.