Karwar: The government has taken several initiatives for the development of Baithkol (bay of safety in Arabic) port in Karwar. The construction of new storehouse, better anchorage facility for large foreign vessels and dredging are some of the initiatives on the anvil to make operations profitable at the all season port.
The port at Baitakol is about 516 meters long and has substantial silt deposit resulting from sea tides reducing the depth from 8.5 m to 5.5 meters. This poses problem while anchoring ships thus leading to dwindling port earnings. Dredging operations were earlier carried out in 2011 to clear the deposited silt but the problem remains the same.
A Chennai-based company has bagged the fresh tender to carry out dredging operations for Rs 33 Crore. In addition, a storehouse construction measuring 60 x 24 metres has been taken up at a cost of Rs 3.4 Crore along with the extension of jetty to 1500 metres.
In addition, there are plans to develop the port further by providing other essential amenities and constructing sea walls to contain erosion by spending Rs 9.46 Crore and Rs 15.45 Crore respectively.
