JSW Infrastructure plans investment of Rs 300 crore to develop its first container terminal at NMPT

JSW Infrastructure, India’s leading infrastructure company and part of the US$ 14 billion JSW Group, has signed a Concession Agreement with New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT) to develop and operate its first container terminal project at the Port for 30 years. JSW Infrastructure is investing nearly Rs 300 crore to develop the container terminal which will have a capacity of 400,000 TEUs. As part of the proposed investment, JSW Infrastructure will undertake mechanization of Berth No 14 for handling containers and other cargo on Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis. The container terminal will have a quay length of 350 meters and accommodate vessels up to 9000 TEUs. It will have a backup storage area of 15.5 hectares for storage of container.

Commenting on the development Arun Maheshwari, Joint MD & CEO of JSW Infrastructure said, “This concession agreement with NMPT is part of our strategic direction to achieve 200 MTPA cargo handling capacity over next couple of years. Container terminal at NMPT will enable us to expand our footprints in container segment and diversify our cargo mix. We expect to commission the terminal by mid of next year. It will play a key role in economic development of NMPT and the entire region expanding upto Mysore, Hassan and Bengaluru”

According to Devki Nandan, Senior Vice President of JSW Infrastructure, “Modernization of container terminal and handling bigger vessels at NMPT will immensely benefit the customers by bringing efficiency and reducing the cost. We plan to introduce main line vessels connecting to key destinations worldwide”.

NMPT is an all-weather, lagoon type port situated at Panambur, Mangalore in Karnataka and is one of the major ports playing a key role for the economic development of Karnataka. Over the years the NMPT has grown fast to handle over 42 million tonnes of cargo traffic in 2018-19. Container traffic at NMPT has been growing at a CAGR of 15 per cent since 2013 as compared to Indian container traffic growth of 7.52 per cent.

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