The V.O. Chidambaranar (VOC) Port Authority has signed a concession agreement with Tuticorin International Container Terminal Private Limited (TICTPL) to convert Thoothukudi Port’s Berth No 9 into a container terminal.
The handling facility in India’s eastern coast will be developed by TICTPL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of JM Baxi Ports & Logistics Limited, at an estimated cost of INR 434.17 crore ($54 million), with an estimated capacity addition of 600,000 TEU per annum.
This will be the third container terminal to open at Thoothukudi Port.
The project will be executed on a Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis with a construction period of 21 months.
Completion is scheduled by December 2024.
The VOC Port Authority Chairman, T.K. Ramachandran, and TICTPL Managing Director, Dhruv Kotak, signed the agreement on 4 September.
At the signing ceremony, Ramachandran said the terminal will have a length of 370 metres and draft of 14.2 metres, allowing vessels up to 8,000 TEU to attract more investments and bolster the economic development of the region.
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The VOC Port Authority is the second largest container handling port in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India. It has a container handling capacity of 1.17 million TEUs per annum.
Thoothukudi Port handled 760,000 TEU in 2021-22 and it is expected to handle 1.16 million TEU by 2024-25 and 2 million TEU by 2034-35, according to port officials.
