Vasan wakes up, to visit Ennore Port today (Friday)

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, on Aug 13, 2010:

CHENNAI: Fourteen months after he took over as Union Minister for Shipping, G K Vasan is all set to visit the Ennore Port for the first time. On Friday, he would inspect and review the ongoing projects there.

Vasan’s proposed visit to the fast-emerging port near the Chennai Port comes in the wake of a recent Express report about his lack of interest in inspecting ports in the capital region of his native state.

Sources said on Thursday that the minister was to originally attend a function in the metro for signing of a Concession of Agreement for the development of a world-class container terminal between Ennore Port and Bay of Bengal Gateway Terminals at a city-based hotel, but changed his plan and asked the port management to arrange for an inspection at Ennore to get a spot report on the progress of it various important projects.

By announcing the inspection-visit to Ennore Port on Friday, Vasan has sought to put an end to the ongoing controversy on his laxity in doing it, unlike his predecessor T R Baalu.

Chennai Port sources said the minister was likely to visit the port premises in the next three weeks for general inspection and was expected to take up the Shipping Ministry the port’s ambitious Rs 3,600-crore mega-container terminal project.

A multinational consortium headed by Grup Maritim TCB SL, a Barcelona-based leading port operator, has won a bid to build and operate the container terminal at Ennore Port. The estimated cost of the project is around Rs 1,400 crore and the concession would be awarded on a BOT (build, operate and transfer) basis for a period of 30 years. The terminal will have a quay length of 1,000 metres and an estimated throughput of 15 lakh containers annually.