Mumbai, June 23 (PTI): The Gammon-Dragados consortium, which is developing the offshore container terminal of the Mumbai Port Trust (MPT), today began operations at the terminal inside the port.

The Mumbai Port Trust was running the container terminal till now.

As part of an agreement to build the offshore container terminal, the MPT has transferred the control of the container terminal to Gammon-Dragados.

Dragados is a Spanish logistics firm. The companies have floated a special purpose vehicle called Indira Container Terminal in which they will each have a 50 per cent stake.

The container terminal currently handles about 1 lakh teus (twenty equivalent units) per annum and this is expected to go up to 1.5 lakh teus within two years.

Simultaneously, the consortium would begin work on the offshore container terminal at a cost of Rs 1,228 crore, which would take three years to complete.

“Mumbai port started handling containers way back in 1968. The plan for a new container terminal was conceived in 1990s and now it has finally taken off. We are in the right place at the right time,” MPT chairman Rani Jadhav said at a function here.

While the consortium would build the terminal, the port would provide supporting infrastructure such as dredging and navigational aids and the laying of tracks for a rail container depot.

“The Mumbai region, which includes the Mumbai Port Trust and JNPT, handles 60 per cent of the country's container traffic,” she said. Once the offshore terminal comes in place, it will handle 1.5 million teus.

The consortium would spend Rs 800 crore in the initial phase of three years and another Rs 400 crore subsequently, thus aggregating to about Rs 1,200 crore.

The project is on a build, operate and transfer basis for 30 years. The project would enable the port to handle large size container vessels.