Bharat Freight’s arm wins deal to run India-funded Sittwe port in Myanmar

MUMBAI : A to Z EXIM Limited, a unit of Mumbai-based Bharat Freight Group, has won a contract from the government to operate, maintain and develop the port and inland water transport terminals at Sittwe and Paletwa in Myanmar under India-funded Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project.

The second contract for Bharat Freight in an India-funded maritime project after Chabahar port in Iran

The contract is for an initial period of three years which can be extended by two years.

“Our mandate is to complete the pending civil works, install equipment to make it into a proper port and develop business,” said Sohel Firoz Kazani, managing director of the Bharat Freight Group.

The Sittwe deep-water port is a part of the $484 million Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport project constructed by India.

The project seeks to reduce cost and time for transporting goods to landlocked Mizoram. Goods will be transported from Kolkata port to Sittwe by sea and onwards to Paletwa in Chin State via the Kaladan river from where it will be moved by road to Mizoram.

Kazani said that the sanctions imposed by the United States on some Burmese military leaders and military holding companies responsible for the coup that overthrew Myanmar’s democratically elected government on February 1 and the human rights abuses that followed will not impact its contract in that country because it is funded by the Indian government and continues to be a government-to-government project.

Bharat Freight Group unit, Land Marine Engineering and Port Solutions LLP, had previously teamed up with Bandar-Abbas-based Kaveh Port and Marine Services to run the India-funded Chabahar port in Iran on a short lease contract awarded by state-owned India Ports Global Ltd.

The joint venture partners completed the contract tenure of two years in December 2020, Kazani said.

Bharat Freight Group has also formed a joint venture to execute a Rs105 crore engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract in partnership with Finland’s Marintek to construct 68 floating jetties for the Kochi Water Metro.

Kochi Water Metro is an integrated ferry transport project in Greater Kochi region being implemented by Kochi Metro Rail Ltd. It seeks to provide feeder service to suburbs along with rivers where transport accessibility is limited.

The group has also won a contract for owning and operating water taxis on all the routes of Mumbai’s Eastern Water Front project and also the first route in Gujarat between Dahej to Gogha (Bhavnagar) and Hazira (Surat), Kazani added.

Source : The Hindu Businessline