JNPT to pick up 70% stake in Indore-Manmad rail line: Gadkari

TIL Desk/Business/Mumbai/ Union shipping minister Nitin Gadkari has said the nation’s largest container port, JNPT, will pick up 70 per cent stake in the proposed Rs 8,000-crore Indore-Manmad railway line being built by his ministry as part of developing dry ports.

The minister last December had announced the project, which is part of de-congesting the clogged Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) and also to connect neighbouring Kasara in Thane district and JNPT directly.

To reduce the container traffic passing through Mumbai and its suburbs, the ministry has asked for land near Vasai on the outskirts, from where the containers can be sent directly on barges to JNPT via the waterways, he said.

“We will be building the Rs 8,000-crore Indore-Manmad railway line. JNPT will hold 70 per cent equity in the project,” Gadkari told reporters at the JNPT, without giving further details.

He said the proposed railway line can connect and develop further the landlocked industrial hub of Indore and Manmad in Maharashtra, which then can also be connected to main Delhi-Bengaluru and Delhi-Chennai lines, which will also bring down travel time and distance.