The Union cabinet on June 19 gave its sanction to the mega port at Vadhavan in the Palghar district of the Konkan region, nearly four years after the project was first proposed.
The initiative, with a target budget of more than Rs 76,000 crore, was initially given the go-ahead by the cabinet in February 2020 under the Sagarmala programme that seeks to improve the country's logistics with a focus on the maritime sector.
However, it was in limbo after it became a big flashpoint between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre and the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government that was in power in Maharashtra.
Need for a new port in Maharashtra and around Mumbai
Maharashtra has two major ports—Mumbai and Jawaharlal Nehru Port, which constitute India's premier trade gateway.
However, these ports are facing capacity constraints, with Mumbai Port facing issues due to the development of the city around it and also due to depth constraints in the harbour depth that limit the size of the ships that can call at it.
JNPT, the country's biggest container shipping operation, is also expected to reach peak capacity utilisation by 2030.
Unmesh Wagh, the chairman of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority told Moneycontrol earlier this month that India desperately needs a new port as the total capacity of the country's three largest seaports—at Mumbai, and Mundra Port and Pipavav in Gujarat—will be maxed out by 2029.
"We should have made it yesterday, but if not yesterday then immediately. We will start construction of Vadhavan Port soon. All the clearances have been taken and only the cabinet clearance is pending due to elections," Wagh told Moneycontrol during that interaction.
Furthermore, due to the presence of bedrock very close to the existing bed level at JNPT, the port cannot be deepened further economically to handle the future generations of mega container ships drawing a draft of 16 m or more.
The draft of a ship is the portion below the waterline.
Given the growth projections for container shipping, it is necessary to locate a new mega port at a site that can cater to this increased capacity requirement and could also be developed to handle the future deep-draft ships.
Wagh also said that the new port will be three times the size of JNPT, making it the fifth or sixth largest in the world.
"Currently, we are 25th or 26th and among top 10 ports in the world, seven are Chinese. Others (in the region) are Singapore, Busan (South Korea) and Jebel Ali (Dubai). So, we are nowhere and we plan to develop our country like China. It will be a majorly container port and a clean port since we will not be transporting coal, iron ore from there," Wagh said.
Reduce logistics costs
Vadhavan Port is expected to cater to spillover traffic from JNPT once its expanded capacity of 10 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard measure for container traffic) is used up. It is expected that Vadhavan Port will handle around 1 million TEUs of cargo in its first year of operation.
Also, since Vadhavan is closer to South Gujarat and parts of Madhya Pradesh than JNPT is, it will attract a part of the total traffic from these hinterlands.
The logistics industry also stands to benefit from this port due to its proximity to Indian Railways' Western Dedicated Freight Corridor and national highways.
Port contours
Nestled towards the north of Mumbai, Vadhavan Port provides an ideal location with a natural draft of 20 metres depth at a distance of 5 km. This makes the port an ideal hub for handling larger container vessels of 16,000 to 20,000 TEU capacity, which in turn offers advantages of scale and reduced logistics costs.
To be built in phases, the port will handle 15 million TEUs in the first phase and 23.2 million TEUs after the commissioning of its second phase. Its proximity to Mumbai as well as Gujarat along the western coast along with established connectivity to northern and central India via the national railway network and NH8 add to its attractiveness as a trade gateway to the region.
Vadhavan Port Project Ltd—a special purpose vehicle (SPV) between JNPA and the Maharashtra Maritime Board (MMB)—commissioned 26 surveys and studies relating to various environmental aspects and the impact of this port could have on them.
According to ports minister Sarbanand Sonowal, the SPV will invest close to Rs 37,000 crore for setting up basic infrastructure, while around Rs 38,000 crore will come from private operators interested in operating the proposed deep-draft port.
Sonowal had earlier this year said that the port would fuel substantial industrial growth in the region, creating job opportunities for thousands of young individuals.
Village protest
Over the last four years, there has been widespread opposition to the project from local communities, who fear displacement and loss of customary livelihoods as experienced by indigenous communities in Raigad’s Uran taluk (where JNPA operates India’s largest cargo port at Nhava Sheva).
Dahanu is one of the eight taluks in Maharashtra’s newest district of Palghar, which was created in 2014. But over two decades prior to that, the Ministry of Environment and Forests had, under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, declared Dahanu an “ecologically fragile area” and imposed restrictions on setting up industries that have a detrimental effect on the environment.
Locals including groups of fisherfolk, tribals, farmers and residents of Vadhavan and nearby villages came together under the Vadhavan Bandar Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti to protest against a biodiversity survey undertaken by JNPA officials and scientists from the National Institute of Oceanography for the construction of a port at Vadhavan.
Stressing on the ecological sensitivity of the area, the locals have said that the construction of the port will not only hurt the flora and fauna of Dahanu but will also disrupt allied activities like fishing and farming.
Political importance
The port has been a topic of political contention for the last 25 years.
In 1998, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had planned to initiate a port project in Vadhavan. But the project was not approved because of stiff opposition from fisherfolk of Maharashtra and Gujarat.
So when the BJP came back to power in 2014, the project was revived and subsequently, a memorandum of understanding was signed between JNPT and the MMB in 2020.
But the project has been hanging fire since, caught up in political wrangling.
Addressing a rally in Boisar in Maharashtra in March 2024, Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray had said the project was earlier considered and scrapped when the Shiv Sena-BJP was in power in the state during 1995-1999. He added that he had personally visited the area and interacted with the villagers and fishermen in the late 1990s.
“If you are going ahead with Vadhavan project by not taking into consideration the concerns of people, then go ahead. We will run the people’s bulldozer over this government,” Thackeray had said at the rally.
However, the BJP won the Palghar seat in the recent Lok Sabha elections, a constituency reserved for Scheduled Tribes candidates.
The constituency's new member of parliament Hemant Sawra, who replaced Shiv Sena incumbent Rajendra Gavit, pledged on June 16 to overcome land acquisition hurdles to fast-track key infrastructural initiatives, including the Vadhavan port.
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