Chief Ministers YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will formally commence the works of Machilipatnam Port to be constructed at a cost of Rs 5,156 crore on Monday. It may be noted here that former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy laid the foundation for the Machilipatnam Port on April 24, 2008. The proposed port with an annual capacity of 35.12 million tonnes, 4 berths to be set up to handle imports and exports. Port works are expected to be completed between 24-30 months, providing direct and indirect employment to nearly 25,000 people. The port will be expanded to 10 berths later to handle a capacity of 115 million tonnes per annum.
The Machilipatnam Port can turn to be instrumental in exports of fertilizers, coal, cooking oil, containers, agricultural products, cement, cement clinker, granite, iron ore coming from the districts of Guntur, Krishna, NTR, East and West Godavari of Andhra Pradesh and Khammam, Karimnagar, Adilabad, Nalgonda and Warangal districts of Telangana. Once the works are completed, Andhra Pradesh will emerge as the gateway to Southeast Asia with 6 existing ports and 4 upcoming ports.
The present cargo handling capacity of 320 million tonnes per annum with 5 Non-major operational ports along with one major port at Visakhapatnam in our State will get an additional 110 million tonnes of cargo handling capacity by 2025-26 through the newly constructed ports according to officials.