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.
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.
