Visakhapatnam Port Receives Smart City Team Visitors

Visakhapatnam Port was visited by a high level team of the smart city on Monday. This team comprises of John Bachmann, Ryan Bouma, Raj Shelat from USA and Vivek Nanda from UK. PL Haranadh who is the VPT Deputy Chairman took an active part and explained the team about the importance of the Visakhapatnam Port.

The availability of infrastructure facilities was the topic for the discussion and they also discussed about the efforts being made to make Visakhapatnam Port a world-class port. The smart city team officials were very much keen and also interested to know about the road connectivity, cruise terminal and the Sagarmala issue. A presentation was also given on the issues studied by the smart city team for the development of Vizag as a smart city.

Visakhapatnam Port is one of 13 major ports in India and the only major port of Andhra Pradesh. It is India’s second largest port by volume of cargo handled. It is located on the east coast of India and is located midway between the Chennai and Kolkata Ports. As part of its modernisation program, the port is also upgrading its general cargo berth in the outer harbour to accommodate vessels of 2 lakh DWT, deepening its inner harbour entrance channel and strengthening five berths in the inner harbour to admit vessels with 12.5 meter draft. Other steps being undertaken include the development of a truck parking terminal and a multimodal logistics hub, the procurement of two 50 tonne tugs and the installation of mechanical handling facilities in the inner harbour for dry bulk cargo.

The team members stated that they aim to attract USA based companies to find all the business opportunities in the port city and also the evacuation of cargo with efficiency parameters followed by port in the city. The smart city team officials also studied the feasibility of waste management, rain water harvesting and efficient drainage system for Vizag. Haranadh expressed that the constraints for the port will be easy once the Raipur-Titlagarh railway line was doubled and electrification gets completed.