| Sunday , March 22 , 2015 |
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150322/jsp/frontpage/story_10198.jsp#.VQ4bSvyUeSo
Chunnel at the end of port tunnel- Hope drifts, under water |
| Sambit Saha |
CENTRE KEEN TO LIFT HURDLE BEFORE BENGAL PORT PLAN  Calcutta, March 21: Many a castle has been built in the air in Bengal but this time it need not be so. The country's first rail-and-road-link beneath a riverbed, using immersed tunnelling technology that's pretty commonplace in Europe but not in Asia, could be built in Bengal if the Centre presses ahead with its stated thrust on infrastructure. The rail-and-road tunnel is being planned between the northern tip of Sagar Island and Kakdwip in South 24-Parganas under the Hooghly in a stretch called Muri Ganga. Kakdwip is around 90km from Calcutta. The idea of burrowing under the riverbed to build a 3-km-long road and rail link is critical to the operation of the proposed deep-water port on Sagar Island. For the port, a joint venture has been formed between the Centre and the Bengal government. The joint venture will act as a landlord. The private player that agrees to share the most revenue with the joint venture will get the contract to build the port. However, investor interest has been somewhat lukewarm although the Sagar port project was conceived a decade ago. Private parties have balked at the idea of building infrastructure to take the cargo across the river to the mainland. The cost of creating the connectivity links has been estimated at one third of the Sagar port project cost that was pegged at Rs 11,921 crore in 2012 and is likely to go up. This is where the tunnel plan assumes significance. If the Centre, whose Calcutta Port Trust (CPT) holds the rights to the waterway, takes the initiative to build the link, it will remove the main hurdle standing in the way of a port that can lead to far-reaching changes in Bengal. A three-port (Kidderpore, Haldia and the one proposed on Sagar) system could win Bengal back some of the lost glory dating back to 1870 when the first port was established in Calcutta. The idea is to win back the cargo that it has been losing out to competing ports like Paradip, Visakhapatnam and Dhamra. Opinion exists in the Union shipping ministry that priority should be given to the connectivity project to breathe life into the port plan. "Unless there is visible progress on connectivity, potential investors in the port project are unlikely to commit funds," an official said. Shipping minister Nitin Gadkari is gung-ho over the under-river tunnelling proposal. Gadkari, who was known as "flyover minister" in Maharashtra because of his single-minded focus on infrastructure projects, has turned out to be a votary of underground road projects. If everything goes according to plan, the feasibility of the Sagar tunnel is expected to be decided by August this year and, once cleared, it can be built in two to three years. Immersed tunnel technology involves the creation of hollow concrete boxes that are carefully placed beneath the riverbed. The boxes are then bolted to each other to create the tunnel. If the plan is implemented, it is expected to put Sagar's road and rail infrastructure on a par with some of the busiest ports in the world like Antwerp and Tokyo. In places like Rotterdam, Antwerp and Amsterdam, such tunnels were created several decades ago. The shipping ministry is mulling "beneath the riverbed" connectivity to skirt a tangle of thorny issues thrown up by the original plan to build a double-decker bridge that would have provided the road and rail links from Sagar Island to Kakdwip. In a key decision that will help accelerate the connectivity part of the project, the shipping ministry has decided to split the project into two parts. "The port will be developed under the PPP (public-private partnership) mode where the private partner will put in all the investment. The government's contribution will be in the form of granting land use rights and the ability to harness the potential of the river channel. The rail-road connectivity will be taken up separately," R.P.S. Kahlon, the chairman of CPT, told The Telegraph . CPT is the nodal agency for the creation of the new port. The private partner for the port project will stump up most of the money required in the form of equity capital and debt. The government can fork out money to fund the so-called "viability gap" - the difference between the money that the private investor can raise for the project from all sources and the sum required to complete it. "I foresee a viability gap funding of 20 per cent that will come from the Centre (for the tunnel). The state government is also likely to chip in with 5 per cent," Kahlon added. The connectivity could be fully funded by the Centre if the tunnel was found to be commercially unviable, according to A.K. Mehera, the chief engineer of CPT. The original plan for a stack of overbridges across a busy waterway poses a couple of problems: first, it will entail a fairly large acquisition of land on either side to provide the desired elevation for the bridges. Second, overbridges severely restrict the size of vessels that can use the waterway. On this river stretch, there's an added problem because vessels use the waterway to transport goods to ports in Bangladesh. That's one of the reasons why the plan to build rail and road links beneath the riverbed came up. The advantage is that a lot less land will need to be acquired at both ends of the riverbank. Initial estimates suggest that around 210 acres of private land needs to be acquired to build the overbridges. Mehera said the tunnels would not require a long approach and hence the land requirement would be a lot less. But the flip side is that the cost could balloon. The cost of the overbridges was estimated at Rs 3,421 crore. Rail and road links built using the immersed tunnel technology will be a lot higher. Gadkari, who attended the Bengal Global Business Summit in January where CPT signed an agreement with the state government to implement the port project, has decided to carry out a detailed study to explore the option of using immersed tunnel technology to link the two banks of the river. For the Sagar project, the National Highway and Infrastructure Development Corporation has been engaged to suggest the best possible techno-economic option for railroad connectivity, including appropriate river-crossing methodology, by August. The government agency is likely to seek the help of Tunnel Engineering Consultants (TEC), a Netherlands-based firm that specialises in immersed tunnel technology. TEC is a permanent joint venture partnership between two leading international consultants: Royal Haskoning DHV and Witteveen + Bos, which are regarded as experts in underground projects. Royal Haskoning DHV has a subsidiary in India with its head office in Noida and is believed to have already made a presentation on the immersed tunnel technology and how it could be beneficial for the Sagar port project. Company officials could not be reached to confirm the development. But will the idea of creating road and rail links below the riverbed fly? A lot will depend on the costs. "Whatever the mode, it isn't possible to build the port on Sagar Island without connectivity. That is also a long-standing demand made by the over 2 lakh people who inhabit the island," said an official. |