Container Corporation of India Ltd has picked up a 15 per cent stake in India Gateway Terminal Pvt Ltd, a company floated by Dubai Ports International , to set up and operate an international container transshipment terminal (ICTT) at Vallarpadam near Kochi.

Concor will be the preferred partner for DPI to provide rail connectivity to the hinterland from the terminal.

Concor, now participating in the construction of a new terminal at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), will invest in the development of ICTT as well.

Vallarpadam Project: DPI will take over the operations and management of the Rajiv Gandhi Container Terminal (RGCT) of the Kochi port in eight weeks, as the first step towards implementing the Vallarpadam ICTT.

DPI would invest around $20 million in modernising RGCT by investing in quayside and yard-handling equipment and information technology systems.

Four rubber-tyred gantries and two mobile harbour cranes will be brought to the terminal to improve yard handling, truck turnaround times and quayside operations.

Once RGCT achieves a volume of four lakh twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), DPI will migrate to the proposed ICTT at Vallarpadam. Construction of ICTT is expected to be completed in four years and commercial operations will begin within a year afterwards.

The first phase of ICTT will have a capacity of 1 million TEU and entail an investment of $135 million. It will consist of 600 metres of quay, six super post Panamax quay cranes and an on-dock railhead serviced by rail-mounted gantry cranes.

Eventually, Vallarpadam will be expanded ahead of demand to a total 1.8 km of quay and at least 16 quay cranes capable of handling the largest vessels afloat, with associated yard-handling equipment and capacity of three million TEU. The project will be financed at a 70:30 debt-equity ratio.

A consortium of banks led by the Infrastructure Development Fund Company will provide the debt.