By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, September 27, 2018: Construction of port project on the Subarnarekha River mouth on the Bay of Bengal in Balasore district will begin from October with Defence Ministry’s clearing the project.

The Port will be developed at an estimated cost of Rs 4,000 crore, Commerce and Transport Minister Dr Nrusingha Charan Sahu told reporters after chairing a meeting here on Thursday.

An all-weather deep-draft commercial port at Subarnarekha River to be developed by the Chennai-based Creative Port Private Ltd (CPPL) will have an initial capacity of 10 million tonnes per annum (MTPA). It will be raised to 40 MTPA over 10 years.

Construction will be completed in 36 months and there is no problem relating to land acquisition for the port, he said.

In June, the defence ministry had given clearance for the construction of Subarnarekha port in Odisha.

CPPL had signed an MoU with the State government on December 18, 2006 to develop the project. Later, the revenue sharing agreement was inked between the two on January 11, 2008.

Meanwhile, Tata Steel has signed an agreement with CPPL to get 51 percent equity in the port project from the original promoters.

Centre gave environment clearance to the proposed port project in 2012. However, the project could not be executed with the objections raised by the defence ministry. Later, the ministry gave conditional clearance on June 5.