Ramayapatnam port foundation today

Nellore: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will lay the foundation stone for the Ramayapatnam port on Wednesday. It may be mentioned here that the construction of Dugarajapatnam port was originally included in the AP State Reorganisation Act-2014. But now the state government is constructing the port at Ramayapatnam merging the area in Nellore district.

Dugarajapatnam of Nellore, which was in Nellore district, after reorganisation of districts has become part of Tirupati district. Hence the decision to construct the port there has been changed citing reasons that it would affect ISRO's SHAR project and ecologically fragile Nelapattu bird sanctuary. This has dashed the hopes of people of the undivided Prakasam district.

Once the Ramayanapatnam port comes up, leaders of Nellore say that it will usher development in the Kavali region. This would be the second port in the reorganised Nellore district.

Earlier, there has been a serious struggle in Prakasam district for the port since 2011-12 and the last Chief Minister of the united Andhra Pradesh, Kiran Kumar Reddy accepted the Port and said that the state was ready to invest 11 per cent of the equity share and provide land at Ramayapatnam for construction of a major port.

The Rail India Technical and Economic Services Ltd (RITES) subsequently conducted a scientific study and cleared Ramayapatnam proposal a decade ago indicating good viability of the port.

But the then Tirupati MP Dr Chinta Mohan succeeded in mounting pressure on the Manmohan Singh-led government by securing signatures from MPs and others to shift the port plan from Ramayapatnam to Dugarajapatnam in 2013.

The NITI Aayog in March 2018 announced that the port and shipbuilding centre at Dugarajapatnam is not viable technically and economically and advised the state to suggest an alternate place. In February 2020, the YSR Congress government formed an SPV for the construction of a non-major port at Ramayapatnam.