Work on Subarnarekha port from October: Odisha Minister

The Odisha government on Thursday said that the construction of the Subarnarekha port in Balasore will begin in October.

Commerce and Transports Minister Nrusingha Charan Sahu said that the port will cost around Rs 4,000 crore and will be completed in 36 months.

The state has already handed over 692.68 acres of land to the port developers. A total of 961.18 acres is required for the port, said informed sources.

Since the site is close to the integrated test range of the Defence Ministry at Chandipur in Balasore, the Ministry gave approval for the project on the Subarnarekha river mouth in the Bay of Bengal in June.

Chennai-based Creative Port Private Ltd (CPPL) proposes to build an all-weather deep-draft commercial port with an initial capacity of 10 million tonnes per annum.

According to the revenue-sharing agreement with the state government in 2008, the port capacity will be raised to 40 MTPA over 10 years.

Tata Steel has signed an agreement with CPPL for 51 per cent equity in the project.- IANS