Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) has planned to make an investment of Rs 48,933 crore to scale up its port at Dhamra in Odisha to handle 314 million tonne cargo.

APSEZ looks to make the eastern coast port as big as its flagship Mundra port in Gujarat on the western coast. Mundra port is India’s biggest private commercial port. The expert appraisal committee (EAC) in the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has recommended environmental and coastal regulation zone (CRZ) clearances for the expansion of Dhamra on a revised master plan filed by APSEZ.

The Dhamra Port Company (DPCL), the APSEZ unit that runs the port, currently runs two berths with a capacity to load 25 million tonne of cargo such as coal, iron ore and limestone. DPCL had earlier secured green and CRZ nod for Phase-II expansion to handle an additional 71.3 million tonne of dry bulk cargo, liquid and gas cargo including LNG, POL (LPG), other break bulk (clean cargo) and one million TEUs of containers.

Out of this approved expansion, 12 million tonne of LNG component has been transferred to Dhamra LNG Terminal. The planned expansion of Dhamra will be done in two phases by tweaking the master plan. As per the revised plan, APSEZ will first expand Dhamra port’s capacity to 169.5 million tonne with an investment of Rs 17,518 crore over the next five years and then to 314 million tonne by investing additional Rs 31,415 crore by the end of 30 years.

The expansion includes container handling facilities with an initial capacity of 3.1 million TEUs which will be expanded to 4.66 million TEUs. The revised master plan envisages construction of berths and marine structures that can handle multi-purpose and liquid/gas/cryogenic cargo with larger back-up facilities.

The port has acquired 125 mtr wide land corridor from Dhamra to Bhadrak for providing exclusive connectivity with the hinterland. Under the revised master plan, APSEZ proposes to develop an additional two-lane road and a rail track in the existing corridor.

In addition, for easy evacuation of cargo, a new rail, road and utilities corridor is proposed from the northern boundary of the port. This corridor will connect Dhamra port with the existing rail-road corridor near Bansada, Bhadrak.

DPCL was awarded the rights by the Odisha government in 2004 to develop and operate a port at Dhamra for 30 years. The port contract can be extended for two additional periods of 10 years each on mutually agreed terms and conditions. The expansion of Dhamra port will help APSEZ reach the target of handling 400 million tonne of cargo by 2025.