Kolkata: The Committee of Secretaries on Tajpur Port in East Midnapore is likely to finalise the detailed criterion to initiate setting up of the same in a high-level meeting to be held at Nabanna on Saturday.
It was on August 8 when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had announced that her government would only develop the port as the Centre is showing reluctance in this regard despite agreeing to undertake the same a few years ago.
Sources said the meeting of the Committee of Secretaries on Tajpur Port headed by Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay was first scheduled to be held on Friday.
But it has been rescheduled to Saturday from 5 pm that will be attended by the additional Chief Secretaries of the Public Works Department, Home and Hill Affairs Department and Power department.
Principal Secretaries of departments including Finance, Land and Land Reforms and Refugee Rehabilitation and Fisheries will be present in the meeting besides the Secretary of Transport department and Industry Commerce and Enterprises department.
P Kamalakanth, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the West Bengal Maritime Board, wrote to all concerned officers, including District Magistrate of East Midnapore, about the change in schedule of the meeting.
It was in December 2017 that the Mamata Banerjee government had decided to give 74 per cent stake of the proposed deep sea port at Tajpur to the Centre only after the latter agreed to construct an iron bridge across Muriganga river to connect Sagar Island with the mainland in South 24-Parganas. But the Centre is yet to take up any of the projects.
As per the state government's initial planning, in phase-I six of the total 15 berths will be constructed and rest of the nine berths will come up in phase-II.
All the terminals will be multipurpose one and vessels with a parcel size of 60,000 tonne will be able to avail the port with 15 metre draft which is several times more than that of the Haldia Port.
There will be facilities to handle petroleum, dry bulk cargo and container cargoes in all the terminals.