The dredging activities are at snail pace at the newly constructed deep sea port terminal despite approaching its deadline for inauguration by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the mid December.
The dredging depth is short by six to seven meters from the standard limit of 15 meters for the berthing of 12,000 TEUs capacity mother-ships at South Asia Port Terminal (SAPT) but authorities concerned are reluctant to speed up construction of channel in the sea which is likely to miss the commencement of port operations in the next month.
Sources told Business Recorder that the inauguration of deep sea port terminals was postponed by Karachi Port Trust (KPT) thrice in the current year, which were earlier decided in April, August and October, mainly because of incomplete major development works including dredging of channel in the sea and construction of roads connecting from the deep sea port to city.
Sources said PM office conveyed its resentment upon the postponement of inauguration and slowdown of development activities. SAPT, the country's first deep container terminal, developed with an investment of $1.4 billion, a joint venture of KPT and Hutchinson Port Holdings Limited (HPH), the Hong Kong-based parent of SAPT. SAPT has completed work of infrastructure development at the port including cranes, port logistics and power generation with an investment of $600 million. KPT invested $800 million to develop supporting infrastructure. The project has been delayed for six years which was supposed to be completed in April 2010 as per agreement between the terminal operator and the government authority.
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