Port Led Development: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman Visits Mumbai's JNPT

Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman, on Thursday (25 November), visited Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), one of India's premier container handling ports.

The union minister visited JNPT to get a comprehensive understanding of port operations and the array of customs facilities offered by the Port to accelerate trade and commerce.

During her day-long visit at the Port, the Union Minister visited JNPT's state-of-the-art Centralized Parking Plaza (CPP) and inaugurated the foundation stone for setting up a customs examination facility for factory-sealed export containers within CPP.

The union minister also inspected the export documentation centre, customs risk management facility, Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals, and Nhava Sheva (India) Gateway Terminal's control room.

The 'on wheels customs export clearance process' at the 45-hectare CPP can hold over 2,800 export containers on truck trailers. About half of the volume of export from Nhava Sheva is processed here.

In addition, the union minister took a top-angle view of all terminals and surrounding infrastructure from the JNPT Gazebo viewpoint.

Also, the union minister assessed the layout and infrastructure of all port terminals from the sea-side, where she was briefed about several of JNPT's initiatives.

Earlier in November, Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal visited JNPT to inaugurate the JNPT Concrete Road Facility Project at Karal junction and visited JNPT's state-of-the-art Centralized Parking Plaza to review its tech-enabled operations at the CPP command centre.

While addressing a press conference, Union Minister Sonowal stated, "JNPT is going to become a mega port in the near future. That is the vision plan we have in mind. For this, whatever top-class facilities are needed to be incorporated to provide the best-possible support to the users of the Port will be done effectively."