Ponnar may hold review meet on Maduravoyal-Port corridor project

CHENNAI: The 19-km Maduravoyal-Chennai Port elevated corridor project that got stalled for the last five years is likely to witness some activity over the next 10 days as Union Minister of State for Finance and Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan is likely to hold a review meeting with stakeholders.

Addressing reporters on the sidelines of the second edition of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Port Conclave 2018, the Union minister said that the stakeholders meeting would look into various aspects of the project.

Kamarajar Port chairman P Raveendran told Express that the meeting would be held to review the project for which a detailed project report was being prepared by the National Highways Authority of India.
It is learnt that the National Highways Authority of India is working on new alignment based on inputs from the State and a revised DPR is being prepared for the project.

Shipping Ministry joint secretary Kailash Kumar Agarwal said the Centre had asked the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to prepare a perspective plan for coastal shipping, using the Union government’s Sagarmala National Perspective Plan as the starting point. The report is likely to be submitted by December.

On the status of 36 industrial clusters and 14 coastal economic zones identified for development by the Shipping Ministry, Agarwal said that the projects were in policy stages and had yet to be implemented under the Sagarmala initiative.

Earlier, the minister said that the Centre was implementing the Sagarmala programme by identifying as many as 577 projects at an estimated cost of `8.57 lakh crore, to be implemented during 2015-2035.
He further said that the investments were mostly in areas of port development, port connectivity enhancement and coastal community development. Nearly 490 projects at an estimated cost of `4.25 lakh crore are under various stages of implementation, development and completion.