The ball has finally been set rolling towards the corporatisation of Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) with the Kolkata Port Trust (KPT) floating tenders for appointment of a consultant for the process.
The consultant will advise KPT on issues such as financial viability of the company for next 20 years and the distribution of the company's share capital between KPT and the Central government.
The consultant will also decide the fair value of the shares and detailed valuation of assets including the land assets. It will also make a 'concept paper' for the corporatisation of HDC.
The issue of corporatisation would, however, be far from easy as there has been no decision on a set of core issues, as sources in the labour unions and port point out.
Though corporatisation is a welcome change for HDC, which accounts for 75 per cent of the cargo handled by KPT, users are of the opinion that the new entity must report major gains in efficiency.
"The bottomline is that port charges have to come down and service availability and time has to improve," the sources said. The charges are quite prohibitive in HDC, but the efficiency level has to go up as well lest the new entity gradually loose out to competition.
"The corporatisation has to ensure gains for users or it will be of no use," one of the shippers said.
Moreover, another issue to be looked at is the independence of the new entity in decision making and implementation. "The company should run as a corporate entity and the scope of government interference has to be minimised," the shipper added.
Experts feel doing that would not be easy as there are lot of government representatives on many decision-making committees of KPT. So the next step should be the exclusion of all such people from the corporatised entity.
Kolkata Port Trust, being one of the oldest port in the country, also labours under outdated labour practices and traditions. Its operations are marked by practices such as mandatory appointment of watchmen.
The corporatisation should ensure elimination of these bottlenecks. At the end, it would also make the port liable for taxation. KPT should also see whether it would remain viable after it is corporatised.
