Krishna district set to take a big leap with Masula Port

Vijayawada is set to take a big leap forward once the Machilipatnam Port takes off. The Masula port, with 23 berths is all set to be the central point for handling imports and exports of the East Asian countries. Also, the port is seen as most suitable for container terminal on the lines of Colombo and Singapore for importing coal and fertilizers and exporting rice and spices.

The Krishna district administration has fastened the land acquisition process for the port and would soon come out with notification. Post issue of notices the officials would start acquisition and hand over the land to the Navayuga Engineering Company, which is assigned to build the port. District collector Babu A and joint collector G Chandrudu are involved in identifying the land to be acquired for the port.

The revival or rather reconstruction of the port began after several years of fight by the locals and continued lobbying by the trading community. In April 2008, the then Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy has laid the foundation stone for the port and had awarded the contract of building the port to Maytas Infra.

However, with the group facing crisis, the government had cancelled the contract and assigned the task to the Navayuga Engineering Company (NEC). The government had initially agreed to give 6,260 acres of land to the NEC for the port, which was later brought down to 5,200 acres, which included 1,600 acres of government land.

The district administration claims that it had already handed over 412 acres to the NEC for the port and would issue notification for the remaining. The officials have held several rounds of talks with the land owners in the area and are now trying to convince them with a better compensation package, some of which includes a proposal of Rs 700 crore for compensation besides Rs 100 crore for rehabilitation of the 563 families, which are to be vacated.

A senior official from the NEC told The Hans India that they have not received any communication from the government about allotment of the land. “We are ready with men and machines. We will start the work once the land is given to us,” the official said.

By D Gopi