India doubles cost of planned Diamond Harbour container terminal

Cost estimates for the proposed container terminal at Diamond Harbour on the Hoogly, 40 kilometres downstream from Kolkata, have more than doubled to INR12.3 billion (US$2.8 million), reports India's Business Standard.

The Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) was expected to float request for bids for what stacks up on paper to be a 1.6 million TEU capacity terminal expected to hit 1.1 million TEU in its first year of operation.

A committee has since revised the project proposal which originally called for two phases with provisions for handling both dry bulk cargo as well as containers.

The project will now be built in a single phase and have four ship handling piers and two barge piers with 120 acres for yard space and back up land.

Under the new plan, KoPT will have the container terminal built in private-public partnership on a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis, said KoPT chairman Anup Chanda.

Of this, 23 hectares comes from the West Bengal government, 16 hectares from private owners while the rest from the Ministry of Defence, and the director general of lighthouse and lightships.

KoPT also plans to build three more container freight stations (CFS) to supplement its existing two CFS. The two existing CFSs are under Central Warehousing Corporation and Balmer Lawrie.

KoPT was keen on a rail-linkage between the Balmer Lawrie CFS and the Kolkata Dock System (KDS) to overcome the trailer shortage that is pushing up costs.