"We are almost ready with the infrastructure required for almost round the year transloading and have matching cost for users to make Haldia attractive for more cargo," KoPT Chairman M T Krishna Babu told PTI.
"Pricing was an issue for users. From KoPT end, we have reduced Rs 130 a tonne and our transloader partner has also agreed to reduce their charges by Rs 150 a tonne," he said.
These efforts will prevent cargo moving out of KoPT docks to the neigbouring ports.
By July, the Haldia dock will get a floating jetty that will allow barges to unload cargo from larger ships anchored at the Sagar Island. The barges will not have to enter the port confines through the lockgate as the jetty will be close to the Outer Terminal-I.
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This will allow faster operations as the lockgate can't be operated beyond a certain number of times every day depending upon tides, they said.
A sum of Rs 1650 crore is also likely to be pumped in by the port and private investors in agumenting berths outside the lock gates to improve cargo ship management.
Till February 2017, the total cargo handling by KoPT was 44.5 million tonne, down by 2.3 per cent in the compareble 11 months of 2015-16, they said.
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