Cabinet gives nod to missions in 3 countries, development of Paradip Port dock

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved creation of missions in Estonia, Paraguay and Dominican Republic, development of a western dock at Paradip Port and three projects for industrial corridor nodes and transport hubs.

In two different projects worth an estimated Rs 7,725 crore, the Cabinet approved proposals of the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) for construction of various trunk infrastructure components for Krishnapatnam Industrial Area in Andhra Pradesh (Rs 2,139.44 crore), Tumakuru Industrial Area in Karnataka (Rs 1,701.81 crore) and a Multi Modal Logistics Hub (MMLH) and Multi Modal Transport Hub (MMTH) at Dadri in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh (Rs 3,883.80 crore).

The projects, the government said in a statement, will have an “estimated employment generation of more than 2.8 lakh persons”. The Krishnapatnam and Tumakuru projects “have been planned on the backbone of multi-modal connectivity infrastructure” and approved to “kickstart the development in Chennai Bengaluru Industrial Corridor Project”, it said.

The Paradip Port project for deepening and optimisation of Inner Harbour Facilities, including development of western dock on Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode, will make the port able to handle cape size vessels with an ultimate capacity of 25 MTPA (million tonnes per annum) in two phases of 12.50 MTPA each.

The Cabinet also gave its nod for opening of three Indian missions, which will “help expand India’s diplomatic footprint, deepen political relations, enable growth of bilateral trade, investment and economic engagements, facilitate stronger people-to-people contacts, bolster political outreach in multilateral fora and help garner support for India’s foreign policy objectives”.

Briefing reporters on the decisions taken by the Union Cabinet, Union minister Prakash Javadekar said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has always pitched for maintaining good relations with all countries and the move was part of the efforts to further strengthen ties with other nations.