Chattogram Port Authority (CPA) Chairman Rear Admiral M Shahjahan said the capacity of the port would be increased 3 to 4 times after completing the construction of Bay Terminal and Matarbari Port Development Project.
Besides, the authority has taken short, medium and long-term strategy to cope with increasing growth of cargo, containers and vessel handling of the port in line with user friendly one.
The CPA chairman said this while exchanging views with journalists in observance of 135 Chattogram Port Day at Shahid Munshi auditorium hall on Sunday.
The Port Chairman informed that Cox's Bazar district administration had handed over 283.27 acres of land under the Matarbari Port Development Project to the port authorities on March 30.
“Tenders will be called for the construction of the port. The Matarbari terminal will be able to accommodate ships with a draft of more than 18 meters,” he added.
The CPA Chairman said as part of directives of present government, an initiative has been taken to make the New mooring container terminal fully operational after procurements of handling equipment.
He informed that the district administration handed over the documents of 67 acres of privately owned land under the Bay Terminal project to the port.
“The Ministry of Land has been requested through the Ministry of Shipping to allocate another 803 acres of land in favour of the port at a symbolic price. The port authorities are working to build 1,500 meters long multipurpose terminal by 2025”, he added.
He said the construction work of Patenga Container Terminal (PCT) for handling 4.5 lakh TEU's containers a year is 90 per cent complete. The project is being implemented at a cost of Tk 1,229.56 crore.
“The container capacity has been increased to 55,000 by constructing 560,000 square meters yard in a decade to increase the capacity of the port. A total of 390 different types of cargo and container handling equipments including ship to shore key gantry crane, mobile harbour crane, rubber tiered gantry crane has been collected,” he added.
A total of 32 lakh 14 thousand TEUs containers were handled in Chattogram port in 2021 with growth of 13.19 per cent.
The main programme of the day included hoisting of the national and CPA flags at the Port Bhaban at 9:00am and according reception to the retired employees of the port at 4:00pm.
The daylong programme included discussions, view-exchange and colourful cultural function.
Port member (Harbor and Marine) Commodore Mostafizur Rahman, Member (Finance) Kamrul Amin, Member (Engineering) Capt. Mahbubur Ragman, Heads of all Departments and CBA leaders, among others, attended the view exchange meeting.
