After months of hampered operations, there is now an official assurance that the floundering Haldia Dock Complex (HDC), West Bengal's only facility capable of handing large vessels, will have a new navigational channel by the first half of next year.
Functioning of the Haldia port, which is administered by the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT), has been significantly affected due to heavy siltation of the Auckland channel, the major navigational route in and out of the facility, that has disallowed the entry of ships carrying large vessel loads. Consequently, the shipping ministry's technical advisory committee had recommended the opening of an alternative route, known as the Eden Channel, to improve the situation.
“The tendering process for the removal of impediments in the Eden channel has been initiated. We will start testing the new route by April 2010 and the channel should be fully operational by October next year,” minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy said here. He was speaking at the 52nd annual general meeting of the Calcutta Customs House Agents' Association.
In the interim, Roy said, the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) would be instructed to take up silt removal at Auckland channel with greater urgency to ensure that the port remains operational.
“The number of dredgers which work at Haldia is not the criterion. We are searching for more effective vessels. The DCI chairman visited the facility a few days back and all possible measures are being taken from the ministry with the resources available,” he said.
The shipping ministry along with KoPT was looking at fast-tracking the progress of other capacity augmenting facilities such as the establishment of jetties at Salukhali and Sagar which would require 700 and 1,000 acres respectively.
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“We have already received expression of interest for the Sagar project, which will be analysed and sent to the ministry. As for Salukhali, we have taken up the matter with the state government and the zilla parishad. We have also formed an informal committee for the acquisition of land there,” Roy said.
Talks on new facility at Diamond Harbour
The defence and shipping ministers are likely to meet next week to attempt at working out a deal to allow the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) set up a facility at Diamond Harbour, minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy said. KoPT had proposed to set up a container terminal over 130 acres at Diamond Harbour which hit a roadblock after the Defence ministry, earlier this year, declined to give up about 40 acres of land that it owned.
Since then, the project has remained stalled as the defence land was crucial for the terminal. “We have some land at Raichak which we would like to offer to the defence ministry in lieu of the plot at Diamond Harbour,” KoPT vice chairman A Majumdar said.