Second Vivekananda Bridge Tollway Company is exploring opportunity for more foreign direct investment in the logistics sector in West Bengal. The Tollway company is controlled by Mauritius-based PASGIC. The Tollway company is carrying out a “feasibility study for a multimodal transport logistics hub in Dankuni as certain investors are interested in further FDI into logistics and transportation infrastructure projects in Bengal and the North East parts of India. Mauritius-based Pacific Alliance-Stradec Group Infrastructure Company (PASGIC) has a 99.99 per cent stake in the Tollway company, the special purpose vehicle for the Sister Nivedita bridge over the Hooghly river.
“We are actively considering a multi-modal transport logistics hub at Dankuni. We are now carrying out a techno-feasibility study,” SVBTC chief executive officer Anjan Roy Chowdhury told PTI.
The announcement comes as the company celebrates 15 years of its operations since the Nivedita bridge (also called the Second Vivekananda bridge) was opened for public use on July 4, 2007.
The project boasts of the single-largest FDI in the surface transport sector of eastern India.
SVBTC was formed in 2002 and is the 30-year concessionaire for the 6.1-km bridge, and was involved in the design, finance, build, operation and maintenance of the structure.
Only after the feasibility study, the company will outline a project roadmap before approaching the state government for land and other support, Roy Chowdhury said.
Dankuni in Hooghly district is in the focus for the upcoming eastern freight corridor implemented by Indian Railways as this area is expected to see a spurt in cargo volume.
“We aim at providing an end-to-end logistics solution, harnessing rail, road, Inland waterways and sea freight along with warehousing and associated support. But, now it is premature to speak more about the project size and investments,” he said without disclosing the timeline for completion of the ongoing study.
Roy Chowdhury said the total FDI in the Nivedita bridge was around Rs 400 crore, out of the total cost of Rs 556 crore.
The West Bengal government had estimated that the state’s logistics market was worth USD 20 billion, and it was promoting logistics hubs in the state. In 2021, World Bank, the Centre and West Bengal signed a USD 105 million project to improve the inland water transport infrastructure in Kolkata, which has the potential to become a major transport and logistics hub linking the northeastern region and neighbouring countries.
