The Bay Terminal construction project is ongoing in Chittagong port with foreign funding. In the meantime, the businessmen related to the port have raised questions about the necessity of this project. They say that the government and private jetties that are currently operational and under construction have not yet been ensured to be used properly. Port officials also said that only 50% of these jetties are being used. The number of jetties under the control of Chittagong port is 17, out of which 11 are container jetties, the remaining 6 are bulk cargo jetties, government and autonomous organization jetties, Patenga Container Terminal (PCT) Jetty Dolphin Well Jetty, Grain Silo Jetty, Cement Clinker Jetty, TSP Jetty, CUFL jetty, dry dock jetty, KAFCO Urea jetty, Eastern Refinery Ltd (ERL), own jetties of Padma, Meghna, Yamuna etc., two jetties of private company Karnaphuli Drydock which can handle vessels up to 11 meters draft are operational. The above proposed two jetties at Matarbari Sea Port, four jetties at Lal Dyar Char of MARESK Lines and four more jetties at Karnaphuli Drydock are under construction or under construction process after receiving government approval. According to the above calculations, there are a total of 37 jetties owned by the port’s autonomous institutions and private institutions. The total number of jetties in Chittagong is 43 including 6 jetties under construction / under construction. During the year 2019-23, Chittagong Port’s 11 container jetties and 6 cargo jetties handled an average of 3.3 million TEUs and 6 crore tonnes of bulk cargo annually. Due to the international recession, the number of annual cargo movements has decreased significantly. During this period, the number of ships arriving at the port has decreased a lot. At present two-four jetties out of 17 jetties of Chittagong port are always sitting idle due to reduced demand of container and bulk cargo. News and reports of various newspapers are attached in this regard. It may be noted here that other jetties including cement clinker, drydock and Karnaphuli jetty remain empty due to lack of cargo. Moreover, although the 3 jetties of the Patenga Container Terminal (PCT) are operational, ships are often not seen. The port will lose 40% of its container cargo if MARESK Lines’ jetty opens. The approved jetties at government and private level, some of which are functional, some under construction and some under construction, when fully operational, the annual container handling capacity of the country will be as follows: Chittagong Port 3.3 million, MARESK Line 2.0 million, Karnaphuli’ 2.0 million, Patenga Container Terminal 1.0 million, i.e. a total of 8.3 million TEUS I may have to wait another 30 years to meet 100% of the demand of these 8.3 million TEU capacity jetties. Matarbari Deep Sea Port, which is planned to handle 14 to 16 meter deep draft vessels, will add another 3 million TEU handling capacity once it is operational. As a result, the country’s container jetties will have a total annual handling capacity of about 11.3 million TEUs, which may have to wait at least another 50 years to meet 100% of the demand, considering the current and potential future demand.
When the actual situation is so dire, i.e. when the country’s existing jetties are lying unused, maximum utilization of the money invested in the jetties at the ports and other public and private levels demands priority, in proportion to the country’s container cargo and bulk cargo, current and potential future needs. The number and capacity of the existing jetties are many times higher and it is clear even on general consideration that it may take another 50 years to meet the 100% demand of the current port jetties and other existing and under construction jetties, whereas the Hon’ble Prime Minister has recently asked to scrap unnecessary, uncertain and costly projects. In that situation, a very expensive project like Bay Terminal whose economic indicators IRR, BCR are not positive in any way and if accepted the Required Port Charges may be so high, due to which Bangladesh may lose competition with the ports of regional countries, imposing it on the nation. The Suicidal Decisions book is nothing. It should be noted here that recently experts and consultants have given negative recommendations in all the surveys they have done regarding the Bay Terminal. The present port is earning 2000 to 2500 thousand crore rupees per year using its own facilities, if the bay terminal is constructed, the port will also lose that revenue. However, the new ‘Bay Terminal’ project taken a decade ago to expand the Chittagong port is gaining momentum. The process of awarding 501 acres of land for this project at a nominal price was finalized last May. Last Friday, the World Bank’s Executive Board approved a $650 million loan for the project’s construction of breakwaters and construction and excavation of shipping channels. Due to the approval of this new loan by the World Bank, the development of the Bay Terminal project has come to the fore again. This project area is bigger than the existing terminal area of Chittagong Port. At the end of the port waters, the Bay Terminal project boundary will start from the sea behind the Chittagong EPZ, which will end at Rasmanighat near the Zahoor Ahmed Chowdhury Stadium. The momentum Bay Terminal is gaining is very positive for traders. We had long ago demanded the construction of this terminal. Because, if it is launched, the cost of container transportation and import-export business will be reduced. Don’t get confused. The bay terminal will mainly handle the loading and unloading of containers and goods from ships. Open goods can be moved by sea, but containers cannot be moved without a terminal. Majority of export products are shipped abroad in containers. Again valuable products including industrial raw materials are imported in containers. At present, 98 percent of container loading and unloading takes place in the three terminals of Chittagong port. Loading and unloading of containers has also started at Patenga Terminal. Chittagong port now transports three million or 3 million single containers annually. When the bay terminal is fully operational, it will be able to transport more containers than the port’s existing terminal, port officials said. As the El Bay Terminal project A century ago, Chittagong port used to be jammed with ships for most of the year. For that reason, the port authorities started thinking about new projects to expand the port. Accordingly, in 2014, they took the initiative to acquire land by officially undertaking the project titled ‘Chittagong Port Facility Expansion (Bay Terminal)’. The Bay Terminal was originally supposed to be built on 870 acres of land across the sea in Patenga. It was then that the World Bank came forward to conduct a study on the project. That same year, three World Bank representatives visited the project area and prepared a 46-page pre-feasibility study. The report was handed over to the port in February 2015. The World Bank survey report first stated that the project area is attractive for a container terminal. There is rail and road connectivity near the project area for coming and going from Dhaka.
Bay Terminal will be the sustainable option. Although the World Bank called the project area interesting at the beginning, there was no progress in the work. Various clearances and acquisition of land takes a long time. The entanglement that was related to the acquisition of land was opened in this year. Last May, the district administration sent a letter to take over about 501 acres of land. So far the port is getting 567 acres of land. What’s in the Bay Terminal? In 2017, German consulting firm Schell Horn conducted a study on the technical, economic and environmental feasibility of building the bay terminal. It is said that initially ships of 300 meters length and 12 meters draft (the length of the underwater part of the ship) can be accommodated in this terminal. The master plan and design of this project was finalized in the current year. Accordingly, a total of four terminals will be constructed in this project. Out of this, two foreign companies will construct and operate two terminals under Public-Private Partnership (PPP). The two companies are PSA International of Singapore and DP World of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The two companies will invest about $3 billion. Their investment process has already started. The process of construction of the remaining two terminals is also underway. Abu Dhabi Ports has proposed building a terminal called Multipurpose, which could involve an investment of $1 billion. Apart from this, East Coast Group, a domestic company, has offered to build and operate a gas and oil terminal. East Coast Group will implement this project jointly with foreign organizations. They have offered to invest 350 million dollars. What benefits will there be in business? Due to the limitations of Chittagong port, large ships cannot be docked at the jetty. However, during the day, the ship can be driven at high tide. The ships that now operate in the port, on an average, bring and take 1500 single containers. The study said that the proposed bay terminal would be able to handle 4000 single container ships. Ships can also be launched at any time of the day or night. The Bay Terminal project area is next to the outer ring road connected to the Dhaka-Chittagong highway. There is a railway line nearby. Again, inland waterways can go directly from Bay Terminal to the whole country.
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