While skyscrapers shoot up all over:

Hambantota to become world's largest inland port?

By Shirajiv Sirimane
 

While the Gulf countries are building sky scrapers and trying to create world landmarks, the tiny island nation of Sri Lanka is rewriting world history by building the world's largest inland sea port Hambantota.

In addition it would also go down in the history as a port built in less than three years.

The Port of Rotterdam is the largest in Europe, located in South Holland, the Netherlands. From 1962 until 1986 it was the world's busiest port, now overtaken by Asian ports like Singapore and Shanghai. In 2006, Rotterdam was world's sixth-largest container port in terms of Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEU) handled.

The port is operated by the Port of Rotterdam Authority, originally an arm of the Municipality of Rotterdam, but since 1st of January, 2004, a government corporation, jointly owned by the Municipality of Rotterdam and the Dutch Government.

One of the biggest drawback in these ports is the fact that due to high population and due to other geographical reasons they cannot expand the way the ports of Hambantota can.

Very soon, Hambantota would create another unique landmark by erasing all these and will become the largest harbour.

The main reason for this is the free availability of land which would help make it the biggest harbour in the world, in the future. Port of Hambantota is at present planned to be a service and industrial port, but subsequently it could be developed as a transshipment port, depending on the volume of cargo.

The project can be labelled as the 'baby' of President Mahinda Rajapaksa as he is the one who cleared the main obstacle in obtaining funds from China, one of the three main loan proposals from Sri Lanka during his tour of China.

Making the first major breakthrough the contract was signed and the foundation stone was laid on October 30, 2007.

President's elder brother and present Speaker of Parliament, Chamal Rajapaksa was also a keen motivator of the project, shouldering the burden of relocating around 400 families from the area and offering them around 200 hectares of land. Compensation too was paid.

He said that the Government had gone out of their way when relocating the 400 plus families. "We paid them compensation which was beyond the amount they had expected and we also went to the extent of providing jobs for one in each family", he said.

Relocated families are now at Sinhabopura and have been provided with all the infrastructure facilities, including water supply, sanitation, carpeted roads and many more.

"One of the unique achievements of this was that there was only one legal case against the relocation process, clearly showing that people too gave the green light for the project despite they have to forgo their traditional land and move out to a new place," Chamal Rajapaksa said. "It went smoother than expected as we went to the people, discussed their problems and reassured their well-being."

Employment would be in abundance with the new port, new airport, new hotels, new convention centre, biological gardens and many more. On commissioning the first phase of the project in November, 25,000 persons from Hambantota and the adjoining districts will find direct and indirect employment opportunities.

He said that the port will be connected to all major roads passing through Hambantota including the Kataragama-Colombo highway, and the existing roads will be further widened to ease traffic congestion. Many would be made four-lane highways.

He said on completion of the harbour project it will provide berthing facilities to 44 ships at a given time whereas Colombo could provide only 10-12 ships. The port will be able to handle 20 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) per year with 11 kilometres (km) of berths.

Under the first phase two breakwater, two jetties, infrastructure facilities have already been constructed. The water will be filled upto 17 metres from the harbour bed in the first stage.

Sri Lanka is planning to enhance its ship-building capacity with the Government inviting foreign investors to set up a ship yard at Hambantota port built with Chinese assistance. Shipyards from Dubai, India and China may compete to establish a dockyard in Hambantota.

The speaker said that although there was a desire to build a port in Hambantota it was confined only to talks in air conditioned rooms. But President Mahinda Rajapaksa took the practical steps to make these desires a reality. "The President should be lauded for taking practical measures to building this harbour which all the previous Presidents and Heads of State failed to do, he quipped.

With a view to realise the full potential of the development of harbour facility and recognition of integrating port development with regional development, a comprehensive consultancy study utilizing consultants having experience in Greenfield port construction whose work has been acceptable to international lending agencies is in the final stage.

Phase one of the project which would be flagged off today 10 am. It is planned to have the two breakwater arms on the seaside to ensure the safe navigation and the basin and quay walls within the lagoon called "Karagam Lewaya".

The main important feature of this project is the construction of the quay wall and basin in dry condition after constructing a cofferdam along the perimeter.

The Government allocated US $ 300 million for the first phase while US $ 800 million will be allocated for the second phase. The first phase was scheduled to be completed within 30 months, and was completed on schedule.

People in the South, Uva and Sabaragamuwa the direct beneficiaries of the project will never forget the President for giving a Port for Hambantota.

"Everyone is invited to be at the opening ceremony as this might be a lifetime opportunity. "Those interested people must be present at the harbour premises at 8 a.m.

They will be allowed to enter the harbour basin and see the beauty of the sea water being filled," the Speaker added.