As the first move to charter two additional dredgers to raise the draft in the Haldia channel, Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) is sending a team for spot-inspection of a dredger at Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu.
KoPT had decided last month to go for chartering two dredgers through the shipping ministry outfit Transchart as Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), the usual supplier of dredgers to the port, failed to deploy adequate number of dredgers to maintain the navigable depth in the channel.
The KoPT team together with officials from DCI would visit the coastal city of Nagapttinam near the Sethusamundram Shipping Canal Project (SSCP) to inspect a dredger that could be eventually chartered.
"Transchart had floated expressions of interest(EOI) for chartering dredgers and this inspection has been lined up based on the responses to the EOI", Anup Chanda, chairman of KoPT, said.
The chartered dredger would be operated by DCI officials as KPT lacked the necessary expertise.
DCI was originally contracted by KPT to maintain five metre (m) draft at Auckland and Jellingham points so that the draft of the Haldia channel could be 9m.
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Five dredgers were to work on the channel in addition to one dredger for 120 days.
However, shortage of dredgers had brought the draft in the channel to around 7m in mid-October.
The channel would get two trailer-suction dredgers within November in addition to one cutter-suction dredger deployed by DCI at the first Oil-jetty.
In addition to this fleet, the port has already asked for two dredgers on an emergency basis for the lean months when the monsoons get over and the draft starts to fall.
In case the cutter-suction dredger, sanctioned by DCI beyond its contract with KoPT, was retained for the next two years, the port could also charter one dredger for the time being and go slow on the second one.
The Haldia Dock Officers' Forum (HDOF), however, claimed the KoPT team would visit SSCP to choose one dredger from the fleet working there.
"As the shipping ministry is unwilling to send dregder-16 & 17 to Haldia, the most efficient dredgers working in the country now, it has asked the port officials to select another dredger from the SSCP fleet", said R K Burman, general secretary of HDOF.
The KoPT team comprised A K Bagchi, director-marine of KoPT and N K Chaube, the financial advisor of KoPT, among other technical officials.