In order to check the decline in cargo handling, the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) is striving hard for almost round the year transloading activity with requisite infrastruture and favourable pricing.
"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.
SAIL and Tata are the two potential users which have expressed interest, but are concerned with the total port cost. Now the reduced cost is comparable with neighbouring ports, officials said.
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.
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.
From April, two floating cranes will be arranged at the Sagar Island to unload cargo from mother vessels to barges and with lighterage, the mother vessels can enter HDC while the barges will unload their cargo at the floating jetty that will have a capacity of 2.5 million tonnes.
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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