REC inks pact with Jawaharlal Nehru Port for financing projects up to Rs 45,000 crore

Mumbai, Aug 25 (IANS) REC Limited, Maharatna PSU under the Ministry of Power and a leading NBFC, signed an MoU with Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) for financing up to Rs 45,000 crore for various upcoming projects of JNPA, which includes the development of the deepwater Vadhavan Port.

Rahul Dwivedi, Executive Director, REC signed the MoU with Unmesh Sharad Wagh, Chairman, JNPA in the presence of Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal.

This MoU establishes a framework for cooperation between JNPA and REC whereby JNPA implements projects in the infrastructure sector of its expertise and REC will provide the required funds.

JNPA owned by the Union Government is a premier container handling Port in Mumbai, accounting for around 50% of the total containerized cargo volume, across the major ports of India.

“As the starting point of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), the mega port in Vadhavan will serve as a doorway for India’s trade with Europe and the Gulf region,” says Amitabh Kant, India’s G20 Sherpa.

Vadhavan Port is an approved greenfield seaport in Palghar district on the Maharashtra coast to be operated by JNPA. Construction on Vadhavan Port, about 150 km from Mumbai, is expected to start in January 2025. The port is planned to become operational by December 2029.

Vadhavan Port aims to handle a cumulative capacity of 298 million metric tons (MMT) of cargo annually, including approximately 23.2 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of containers. This will position it among Asia’s largest ports.

REC is a ‘Maharatna’ company under the administrative control of the Ministry of Power and is registered with RBI as a Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC), Public Financial Institution (PFI) and Infrastructure Financing Company (IFC). REC is financing the entire Power-Infrastructure sector comprising Generation, Transmission, Distribution, Renewable Energy and new technologies like Electric Vehicles, Battery Storage, Pump Storage projects, Green Hydrogen, Green Ammonia projects etc.

More recently, REC Limited has also diversified into the Non-Power Infrastructure sector comprising Roads & Expressways, Metro Rail, Airports, IT Communication, Social and Commercial Infrastructure (Educational Institutions, Hospitals), Ports and Electro-Mechanical (E&M) works in respect of various other sectors like Steel, Refineries.

–IANS

sps/svn