Prime Minister to perform Bhoomi Pujan at Vadhavan Port this month

PALGHAR : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will perform Bhoomi Pujan for the proposed Vadhavan Port in February. Wadhwan (also spelled Vadhavan) is located in the Dahanu tehsil of Palghar district along the Arabian Sea, some 140 kms away from downtown Mumbai.

The Vadhavan Port Project has been awaited for the past several decades for multiple reasons including opposition from locals.Maharashtra Chief Minister Shri Eknath Shinde and deputy CMs Shri Devendra Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar are personally steering the execution of the project.

“We have got the environmental clearances. The prime minister would be performing the bhoomi-pujan by the end of this month,” Shri Fadnavis said at a function in Mumbai.

Maharashtra has two major ports – Mumbai (Mumbai Port Authority) and Nhava Sheva (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority), and the need for a mega port has been felt for quite some time now.

In October 2023, the DP World, a leading global provider of smart end-to-end logistics, and the JNPA signed an MoU to initiate willingness and co-operation between them for developing Vadhavan Port.

Nestled towards the north of Mumbai along the Arabian coast, Vadhavan provides an ideal location for a port with a natural draft of 20 meters.

Its proximity to Mumbai as well as Gujarat along the western coast along with established connectivity to Northern and Central India via the national railway network and NH8 add to its attractiveness as a trade gateway to the region.

DP World currently operates five container terminals in India – two in Nhava Sheva, one each in Mundra, Cochin and Chennai – with a combined capacity of approximately 6 million TEUs. The company has also announced the development of a new greenfield terminal at Tuna-Tekra that has an annual capacity of 2.19 million TEUs. Once Tuna-Tekra commences operations, DP World’s combined capacity in India will increase to 8.19 million TEUs.