State proposes 26% stake at Tajpur Port to Centre

The state government has offered 26 percent stake to the Centre at the proposed Tajpur Port.

A meeting was held between the state Chief Secretary Basudeb Bandyopadhyay and the chairman of Kolkata Port Trust ( KoPT) M T Krishna Rao at Nabanna to discuss the matter. The state Finance minister Amit Mitra will meet Nitin Gadkari, union minister for road transport and highways and shipping in New Delhi on Friday where Tajpur Port issue might come up for discussion.

Sources at Nabanna said with the proposal to set up Tajpur Port, the Centre was no longer interested in setting up the Sagar Port where the Centre had a 74 percent stake and the state government had 26 percent stake.

Due to scrapping of the proposal to set up Sagar Port by the Centre, now it has proposed to have 74 percent stake in Tajpur. Earlier, the state government had proposed to set up the Tajpur Port on its own.

The Centre further proposed that with the setting up of Tajpur Port, the cargo handling at Haldia Port would become insignificant. However, it was learnt that the Centre had proposed to set up the Tajpur Port in such a way so that the cargo handling at Haldia was not badly hit.