Adani invests 7000 crore for Dhamra Port expansion

Adani Group-owned Dhamra Port Company Limited (DCPL) will invest close to Rs 7000 crore for expansion of the port’s cargo handling facility. This was communicated by Santosh Mahapatra, director of DCPLrecently in Kolkata. "We are embarking on the second phase of expansion of Dhamra Port. The investment will go for increasing the number of berths from two to 13,” said Mahapatra. According to him the expansion work will begin as soon the clearances from concerned authorities are received.

Gujarat-based Adani group bought out L&T and Tata Steel's shares in the company in March 2014 at an enterprise value of Rs 5500 crore. After the acquisition, the second phase of development was to be initiated within 90 days and completion targeted in 30 months. This continued expansion will allow Dhamra port to exceed 100 million tonnes of cargo capacity by the year 2020. At the moment the port handles around 12 -13 million tonnes of cargo annually. The port, situated between Haldia in West Bengal and Paradip in Odisha, was mostly handling cargo like coal and limestone.