The Minister of Railways, Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu has said that the Port connectivity is an important element to ensure seamless logistics to boost country’s imports and exports. Presenting the Railway Budget 2016-17 in Parliament today he said, last year, Railways had launched a coastal connectivity programme and the Tuna Port was commissioned this year and rail connectivity projects to ports of Jaigarh, Dighi, Rewas and Paradip are under implementation. He said, for the year 2016-17,

Indian Railways proposes to undertake implementation of rail connectivity for the ports of Nargol and Hazira under PPP. The Railway Minister said, considering the urgent need to provide connectivity to our ports on the 7,517 km coastline, Railways will positively consider to undertake any offer of partnership.

Port connectivity as logistics policy: rail-port links to be advanced via PPPs and partnership offers to expand coastal freight access. Development of rail links to maritime terminals is presented as a strategic logistics policy to enhance imports and exports by providing seamless freight connectivity. The statement outlines an ongoing coastal connectivity programme with commissioned and under-implementation port rail links and identifies planned delivery through public-private partnership arrangements, naming Nargol and Hazira for PPP implementation and signalling openness to external partnership offers for further port-rail expansion.