Following is from a Business Standard report.

Chennai-based Creative Port Development Ltd, which proposes to set up an all-weather port at Subarnarekha Muhan in Orissa’s Balasore district, aims to achieve financial closure for the Rs 2187-crore project by June 2011.

The land acquisition process for the proposed port project is set to take off soon with notification under Section 4 (1). "The project needs 1215.43 acres of land for the port area and 1565.93 acres for the rail corridor. Notification under Section 4 (1) will be issued soon for land acquisition”, Sanjeev Sahoo, minister for commerce and transport, Orissa told reporters.

Out of the 1215.43 acres of land needed for the port area, 158 acres constitute Gochar land, 193 acres Bhudan land, 138 acres encroached land and the remaining 724 acres are free land. A high-level meeting chaired by the state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik reviewed the status of ports proposed to be set up at Gopalpur and Subarnarekha.

Creative Port Development Ltd had inked an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the state government on December 18, 2006, for setting up a port with an initial capacity of 10 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) which would be scaled up to 40 mtpa in 10 years.

The port developer had entered into a concession agreement with the state government on January 11, 2008. As per this agreement, the port developer would share revenue with the state government at the rate of five per cent from first to fifth year, eight per cent from sixth to 10th year, 10 per cent from 11th to 15th year and 12 per cent for the remaining 15 years.

Creative Port Development had submitted the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) application to the Orissa State Pollution Control Board on October 19 this year which has been forwarded to the Balasore district collector for conducting public hearing.

The Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) package for the project is under finalisation. The proposed port is set to create direct and indirect employment for around 3,000 people.