After acquiring a stake in the Krishnapatnam Port Company (KPCL) earlier this month, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited (APSEZ) has now set its eyes on a greenfield commercial port in Kakinada, The Hindu BusinessLine reported.
In addition, the Adani arm is also looking to buy the adjoining SEZ at Kona village in the East Godavari district, both of which are promoted by the GMR Group.
Moneycontrol has not independently verified the report.
The GMR Group-run Kakinada Gateway Port, which is a promoter of the Kakinada SEZ, had signed a deal with the Andhra Pradesh government to build the greenfield port on a design, build, finance, operate and transfer basis. The Kakinada SEZ was also awarded a concession period of 30 years by the state government to run the port.
As per the report, the SEZ and the port will be completely taken over by APSEZ from the GMR Group.
The Adani arm had on January 3 announced its decision to acquire a 75 percent stake in KPCL, which runs a deep-water port in Krishnapatnam in the state’s Nellore district. This deal with GMR, if it were to go through, would be APSEZ’s second big move in the ports sector. It would also give Adani a huge parcel of land, and a license to build a port located strategically in the heart of India’s east coast. Adani is India’s largest private port operator which runs 10 domestic ports in Gujarat, Goa, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Odisha with a capacity to operate 378 million metric tonnes of cargo.
