Gandhinagar, 19 January 2012

Gu Dahej-Ghogjarat Maritime Board(GMB) will kick start the work forha ro-ro ferry from January 25th. The project when ready will cut size the distance between south Gujarat and Saurashtra by 300 km. As per the detail available, Gujarat Chief Minister will perform ground breaking of the project at Ghogha in Bhavnagar district on 25th of this month.

Essar infrastructure has been awarded a contract to construct the terminals for ro-ro ferry through bid. The contract is about engineering, procurement and construction(epc). All construction related works of this Roll on-Roll of(ro-ro) service are targeted to end in 15 months.

The project would be an important one considering the challenge to implement it, due to intense tidal condition factor.

As per a study by London based consultant carried out in 2008, daily 1059 cars, 777 buses, 367 light commercial vehicles, 2018 trucks and 444 mulch-excel vehicles travel 340 km distance between Ghogha and Dhahej. The distance across the sea is just 31 km(22 nautical mile) between the two places. Around seven and half hour journey through road will be shortened to one and half hour through sea.

A vessel with 40-km speed will carry 500 passengers. In first phase Ghodha-Dahej service will be started at a cost of Rs 296 crore. In second phase, Mundra-Okha-Porbandar-Pipavav-Haziera-Suvali and Mumbai can also witness starting of such service.

While sea journey between Ghogha and Dahej will take 90 minute, the loading and uploading will take another 40 minute and passenger boarding and deboarding will take 10 minutes. Daily four trips will be conducted.