Low productivity coupled with draught in the Hooghly river have hindered the Kolkata port's performance, the port's cargo handling capacity would fall by at least two million tonnes to around 55 million tonnes this year.
The situation calls for an urgent modernisation of the port's berths all means are being tapped to reduce cost of operation to beat the recession, an official of the Kolkata Port Trust said.
The heat of the recession will be felt from this year when for the first time in decades, Kolkata port, the third major port in the country, would witness a drop in cargo handling in 2008-09.
This year, the port's cargo handling capacity would fall by at least two million tonnes to around 55 million tonnes. Moreover, the situation could worsen during the next fiscal unless moderisation takes place due to low productivity, the port official told PTI.
This at the time when companies are battling to reduce costs due to the global economic crisis, he said.
Meanwhile, the KoPT's decision to enhance productivity to partly offset the perennial problem of draught due to heavy silting of the river has hit a roadblock.
It's attempt to modernise the dry bulk berth no 2 and 8 in Haldia Dock Complex in PPP model for quick implementation and control over productivity has also suffered as the successful bidder could not be handed over the Letter of Intent, he said.
Currently, the capacity of the two berths are 1.5 million tonnes each, but with introduction of modern cargo handling equipment, including mobile harbour cranes, the handling capacity of the same would jump to a minimum of four million tonnes.
The turnaround time for a ship will also get reduced to maximum two days instead of an average six days now.
Under the new strategy, the private firms will be supplying and operating the equipment such as mobile harbour cranes and other intregated operational service, but the port users will have to pay the port authorities for the services and the port in turn will pay the operator.
The Vice-President of the Iron-ore Exporters Association, P Singhania, told PTI that they are bleeding financially due to high operational cost and demurrage for very poor turnaround of ships.
"Now my vessel is stuck at the Sandheads for the last 50 days and I am losing over Rs 5-6 lakh every day. Think of demurrage of such magnitude and outflow of foreign exchange on this account. Contracts are cancelled for such inordinate delay of ship movement, he said.
An average demurrage each day runs into USD 20,000. Port users are desperately asking for private operators of modern cargo handling equipment as their experience with ports' own equipment are extremely poor in terms of productivity as they are either outdated or junk.
Sources in a sugar company, which imports raw sugar in Haldia for refining, said the situation was so grave that viability of the company was at stake.
Exporting firm Bose International Managing Director Rajat Bose said the KoPT badly needs modern shore cranes.
"The average cost for transportation of goods from plot of cargo storage to sealiner is Rs 300 per tonne. If this cost is reduced and also the turnaround time of ships is reduced, the trade will benefit immensely," he said.
