The much-awaited Pangaon Inland Container Terminal (ICT) at Keraniganj is likely to become operational in the first week of November, after a delay of over six years. However, the number of vessels for ferrying containers from the Chittagong port by waterways is likely to be inadequate in the beginning. “Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is likely to inaugurate the ICT. We have sought a convenient date from the PM between November 5 and November 7,” shipping minister Shajahan Khan told The Independent. The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) has already procured three vessels to carry the containers from Chittagong to Pangaon ICT, the minister disclosed.
Nazrul Islam, CPA member (administration and planning), said, “Two reconditioned vessels have already been bought from China for the Pangaon ICT. They have already arrived and are now in Chittagong. Another vessel will reach Chittagong port very soon. This would not hamper operations of the ICT in the initial stages, since the pressure on the ICT would be low.”
He further said each vessel can carry 128 containers (twenty-foot equivalent units or TEUs). The cost would be very low when the containers are ferried by waterway from Chittagong to Dhaka, Islam pointed out, adding, “Around Tk. 21,000-22,000 is needed to carry each container from Chittagong to Dhaka by road, against around Tk. 8,500 per container by waterways.”
The CPA has been appointed the operator of the Pangaon ICT.
Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) additional chief engineer Mojibur Rahman Sarker, who is also the project director, said the government has already approved 41 vessels for carrying containers. Of the approved vessels, 32 would be provided by the private sector, four by the Bangladesh Inland Transport Corporation, three by the CPA and two by the Bangladesh Navy, he added.
The Pangaon ICT project was taken up jointly by the CPA and the BIWTA in July 2000, to help ease pressure on cargo movement on the Dhaka-Chittagong railway and highway corridors, which was completed in December last year.
The CPA-funded project was scheduled to begin in July 2005 and be completed by June 2007. The project deadline was extended in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011 because of bureaucratic tangles and the tardy approach by the contractors, the sources added.
Initially, the project cost was estimated at around Tk. 114.11 crore in 2005, but it was revised in two phases, the sources said. They added, “The cost escalated to Tk. 154 crore in 2007 and again to Tk. 177 crore in 2009.”
The Pangaon ICT has been built on 64 acres of BIWTA land along the river Buriganga in Pangaon. RCC yards, jetties and sheds are being constructed on 35 acres of land, while bank protection works and roads are being built on 29 acres.
The ICT would have a storage capacity of 3,500 TEUs of containers and handle 1.16 lakh TEUs of containers annually.
More than 10 lakh TEUs of containers are handled at Chittagong port annually. Of them, only 10 per cent can be taken to the lone Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Kamalapur in Dhaka by railway.
Courtesy of The Independent
