The iconic sea cruise terminal coming up at BPX-Indira Dock, Mumbai International Cruise Terminal is expected to be commissioned by July 2024. The project is costed at ₹495 crore, from which, ₹303 crore will be incurred by Mumbai Port Authority and the remaining by private operators.
The terminal will have a capacity of handling 200 ships and 1 million passengers per annum.
It is a first-of-its-kind iconic sea cruise terminal in India with a total construction area of 4.15 lakh sq. ft. will have 22 Elevators, 10 Escalators, and multi-storied car parking for 300 cars. Two cruise ships will be able to berth at a time on the dock.
Chairperson, Mumbai Port Authority, Rajiv Jalota said, "domestic and international cruising is expected to be the main activity at Mumbai Port in the coming days. "
He said that the Mumbai Port Authority is laying a special focus on cruise tourism, passenger transportation, and ship repair. He further informed that a Cruise Conference is being planned to showcase India as a cruise destination, to establish ports like Mumbai, Goa, Kochi, and ports on the east coast as cruise hubs of the nation.
The operation and maintenance of the project will be on a PPP basis aggregating to ₹192 crore. The EPC project is expected to complete by October 2022, while the PPP operator will commission the terminal by July 2024.
Further, Jalota spoke about the Kanhoji Angre Lighthouse Development. He said, "With the aim to enhance the scope of cruise tourism and to attract international passengers, we are developing Kanhoji Angre Island under the Lighthouse Tourism scheme. The work order for the project has been issued and it should be completed by March 2023. Mumbai Port has done developmental works worth Rs. 18 crores on the island, which attracts a lot of visitors."
Kanhoji Angre Lighthouse Development island will have facilities for trekking, sit-outs, viewing galleries, interesting pergolas and resting benches, out-door restaurants, performances, overnight camping, etc. The scheduled date of commercial operation will be March 2023,
Also, some light was shed on the Mallet Bunder expansion. The Chairperson stated that the harbour normally handles more than 700 trawlers per day and around 900 trawlers on peak days. He added, "This may soon increase to 1,300. We are planning to develop a fishing harbour to decrease the congestion under the Sagarmala Project. We are planning to start this work in 2022 and we aim to finish it in two years."
Mallet Bunder expansion project is fully funded by Sagarmala and Fisheries Dept., Govt. of India, to cater to the increased demand from the fishermen community. In addition to these, a third chemical berth is being constructed at Pirpau, funded by Sagarmala. The berth will make a capacity addition of 2 MMTPA, catering to handling chemicals including LPG.
The vision of Sagarmala is to reduce logistics costs for both domestic and EXIM cargo with optimized infrastructure investment. Sagarmala aspires to reduce logistics costs for EXIM and domestic cargo leading to overall cost savings of ₹35,000 to 40,000 cr. per annum, focusing on the concept of port-led development. The Sagarmala scheme encompasses projects worth Rs. 5.48 lakh crores, out of which 194 projects worth Rs. 99,000 crores have been completed and 217 projects worth Rs. 2.12 lakh crores are under implementation.
