Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated and laid the foundation stone of mechanisation and industrialisation projects worth Rs 3,800 crore in Mangaluru.
The projects that PM Modi inaugurated include the project worth Rs 281 crore for mechanisation of Berth No. 14 for handling containers and other cargo undertaken by the NMPA. With this, the container cargo handling will be increased from 1.50 lakh Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEUs) to 4.0 lakh TEUs by 2025.
He also inaugurated projects worth around Rs 1,000 crore undertaken by the port. The PM laid the foundation stone for integrated LPG and bulk Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants (POL) facility to be developed at a cost of Rs 500 crore. The state-of-the-art cryogenic LPG storage tank terminal will be capable of unloading a full load of Very Large Gas Carriers’ of 45 KT in a time-bound manner. The foundation stones were also laid for construction of storage tanks and edible oil refinery (Rs 100 crore); construction of bitumen storage and allied facilities; construction of bitumen, edible oil storage and allied facilities (Rs 100 crore); and development of fishing harbour at Kulai (Rs 196.51 crore).
Further, he dedicated MRPL’s two landmark projects - BS VI upgradation project and Sea Water Desalination - plant to the nation. The BS VI Upgradation project with a capital investment of Rs 1,829 crore will enable the MRPL refinery complex to produce auto fuels with sulphur content of less than 10 PPM wt. While the desalination unit, taken up at a cost of Rs 677 crore, will produce 30 million litres per day (MLD) of water that accounts for around 35 per cent of the refinery complex water requirement.