Construction of Newmooring Terminal to be delayed

Commissioning of NCT project is unlikely to be held on schedule by the end of this year.

CPA handed over only 41 acres of land to the construction firm to build up the container terminal, but it could not acquire over 14 acres of private land required for the purpose, sources said.

The process for acquisition of over 14 acres of land moves at snail's pace despite negotiation with the owners of the lands for their relocation and rehabilitation.

As per an agreement, CPA is supposed to relocate and rehabilitate 200 families living on those private lands to begin the construction, port officials said.

Residential buildings, markets and mosques are located over those lands.

CPA Chairman Shahadat Hossain said "We have taken steps to rehabilitate those 200 families on the land recovered from the railway. We are developing this land to accommodate them."

"We need to provide them some infrastructural facilities in the new land for their comfortable relocation and living as they will sacrifice their homesteads for the project," he added. "If we can complete the rehabilitation we will hand over the lands to start construction work in full swing."

"Now the construction firm is doing earth filling and other infrastructural works at the project site," he said. "We expect to commission the project by September 2006," he said.

"With the commissioning of this terminal CPA will be able to handle three lakh more containers annually and it will ease the container congestion at Chittagong port," he said.

Sources, however, said that CPA might have to pay compensation to the construction firm for the delay.

China Harbour Ltd, a Chinese firm, signed a contract with Chittagong Port Authority(CPA) for building the Tk331 crore container terminal at the port area on January last year, officials said.

China Harbour Ltd. representative Zhou Jing Xiong signed and CPA Chairman Shahdat Hossain signed the contract on behalf of their respective side.

An additional revenue of Tk400 crore may be earned a year from the new terminal, port officials said.

It will also raise efficiency of Chittagong port in handling container cargo, they said.

The new 1,000-meter terminal if built, may allow berthing of five container vessels at a time for handling, they said.

Continuous growth of container traffic prompted CPA to take up the project in 1995 at Newmooring site with its own fund, port sources said.

Chittagong port handles over 1,500 vessels a year that carry both import and export goods.

Chittagong port has the multipurpose berths (MPB) with a capacity of handling only 94,000 TEUs containers annually. The MPB was built in 1994 at a cost of Tk 450 crore.

As the MPB can not cope with the growing pressure of container cargo, yards meant for handling general cargo are also used to accommodate the containers, port sources said.