India: KoPT Decides to Scrap Sagar Islands Land Reclamation Programme

As zeenews.com reports, Kolkata Port Trust has decided to scrap the land reclamation programme for building deep sea port near Sagar Islands in West Bengal for want of enough funds.

“We have decided to drop the project, as the shipping ministry was not ready to allot the money for it. They had asked us to internally finance the pilot project covering about 1 kilometre stretch with 800 metre width, which may cost Rs 32 crore. KoPT, which is in a bad financial situation is unable to do that,” said Debashis Dutta, a member of the trust, to Business Standard.

The project was the first-of-its kind in India as KoPT was planning to come up with the port through the reclamation of riverbed. While the reclamation was expected to cost about Rs 200 crore, the total port facility was pegged at about Rs 5,000 crore. The plan was to reclaim 2000 acres of land for the project ranging 8 kilometre stretch for developing a port facility.

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Dredging Today Staff, March 27, 2012;