North Bengal's first dry port begins operation

The first inlandcontainer depot (ICD) or dry port in North Bengal beganoperation beside the tea park at Phulbari in West Bengal'sJalpaiguri district on Wednesday, a company official said.

An ICD is like a port having facilities for cargohandling and temporary storage of containers. It would helphinterland customers receive port services more convenientlycloser to their premises.

This ICD of Jalpaiguri will be of immense help tobusiness houses of North Bengal and the Northeastern region.

Its director Amit Kumar said that though the facilityhas started functioning, it will take another fortnight forfull-fledged operations to commence.

In 2008, the Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Authority(SJDA) had obtained a land from the Railways near NewJalpaiguri station the largest railway station in northBengal on lease.

The SJDA divided the land into two parts for settingup the North Bengal Tea Park on the bigger plot of 50 acresand the dry port on the smaller one of 24.5 acres.

The Railway Board agreeing to issue no-objectioncertificates to entrepreneurs at the tea park has set the ballrolling. Without the nod, investors were unable to secure bankcredit to execute their projects in the tea park.

The viability of the ICD project is dependent on thesuccess of the tea park.