Two top national firms inspect site for developing Tajpur port

KOLKATA: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's dream project to set up a deep-sea port at Tajpur has gone another major step ahead with the site's field inspection conducted by two top expert national firms a few days back.

The firms showed interest in developing the port.

The state government has floated the "request for proposal" (RFP) to set up the greenfield port at Tajpur in East Midnapore and subsequent meetings in this regard have already taken place.

With a "very good response to the state government's proposal, the top brass of the state Secretariat confirmed the field inspection by two major firms of the national-level showing interest to set up the port.

The state government is also confident that the work for construction of the port would progress as planned. When contacted, the officer said: "Two expert firms have recently undertaken the field inspection just a few days ago".

It needs a mention that the state government's plan to develop the deep-sea port at Tajpur has received an impetus with recent identification of 1,200 acres, which used to be a salt godown once at Dadanpatrabar in East Midnapore.

The land was identified only after a recent survey carried out by the district administration followed by the direction of the top brass of the state administration. On September 15, Chief Secretary HK Dwivedi had announced about identification of the land at Dadanpatrabar after the meeting of the West Bengal Industrial Promotion Board headed by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at Nabanna. Subsequently, the RFP was floated in

mid-October.

In 2016, the Mamata Banerjee government had for the first time announced of setting up the major deep-sea port at Tajpur scrapping the erstwhile Left Front government's proposal to set up only a minor port at Rosulpur in East Midnapore.

But the project had got delayed due to the alleged lackadaisical attitude of the Centre despite initially agreeing to the construction of an iron bridge across Muriganga to connect Sagar Island with the mainland in South 24-Parganas against a 74 per cent stake of the Tajpur Port.

The Chief Minister had given the proposal to the Centre in December 2017. With the Centre not taking up the project, Banerjee had announced that her government would develop the same where there would be an estimated investment of Rs 16,000 crore.