By IANS,
Ahmedabad : The Kandla Port Trust (KPT) in Gujarat will construct four new dry cargo berths at the port at an investment of Rs.702 crore (Rs.7.02 billion), officials said.
The berths, to be built under the public private partnership (PPP) and build-own-transfer (BOT) models, would be operational in two years, they said.
The KPT has got the central government’s nod to start the construction work.
A total of 11 companies have already pre-qualified for the project on a tender released by the KPT earlier this year.
Currently, the Kandla port is handling 65 million tonnes of cargo per year. Once the new berths are operational, the handling capacity is expected to increase by eight million tonnes by 2010-end.
By 2012, the port would be capable of handling 100 million tonnes of cargo, the officials said.