The Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) is now awaiting the Central government's approval for undertaking dredging in the outer harbour area. VPT has already taken up the dredging in the inner harbour in the first week of last June. VPT officials are expecting the government to approve the Rs 130 crore project by the end of this month or in the first week of August. The project, which has been delayed by over two years, will involve dredging of nearly 27 lakh cubic metres of soil from the outer harbour to cater to 2 lakh DWT (dead weight tonnage) vessels.    

Three firms including International Seaport Dredging Limited, Belgium-based Jan De Nul and Dharthi Dredging and Infrastructure Limited, which had bagged the dredging works of the inner harbour, have expressed interest in the taking up the project in outer harbour. VPT is hoping to commence work on the dredging project from October this year. Once the project is awarded, VPT officials said that it would take around 9 months for the dredging of the outer harbour to be completed.    

While senior officials said that the dredging of the outer harbour will result in a draft of 20 metres and will result in drastic increase in the cargo handling capacity in seven berths, including two ore berths, one general cargo berth, one offshore tanker terminal, one LPG jetty and two container berths.