Mumbai: After years of delay, the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) has awarded its first bulk cargo project with private participation to Tata Electric Companies (TEC). The ministry of surface transport (MoST) has accorded its final sanction to this project recently and both the port trust and TEC have finalised the procedural formalities in this regard last week.

According to sources with TEC, this 1.5 million tonnes per annum berth at Trombay will handle mainly coal and other liquid bulk cargoes like fuel and oil. TEC will construct the berth in a build own operate and transfer (BOOT) basis and the construction will be over within three years starting from the date of commissioning i.e. 19th of July 2000.

As per the terms and conditions of the BOOT agreement, the berth has to be constructed at a length of 3.5 km and TEC would carry out the operations and maintenance of the jetty for the licence period of 30 years as specified in the BOOT agreement. During these 30 years, TEC will have to pay the port token charges of 1.2 lakhs per month for using the waterfront.

Sources said that initially the investment was estimated to be around Rs 200 crores but according to the present estimates the project would cost about Rs 300 crores as per the revenues fixed after the bidding.

The proposed water depth of the channel is 8.7 meters to handle the ships of about 40,000-45,000 DWT. The depth of the channel has to be constantly ensured and maintained by MbPT which would also provide pilotage, berthing and unberthing of the crew.