Heavy rains in Mumbai hinder JNPT's insurance survey of damaged cranes

Port is currently more focused on checking if the other six cranes are functioning properly; survey team will visit facility on Friday

With heavy rains continuing to lash the city of Mumbai, the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) at Navi Mumbai has not been able to carry out the planned insurance survey after three out of its nine ship-to-shore cranes collapsed Wednesday due to strong winds.

“Currently, we are more focused on checking if the other six cranes are functioning properly as vessels are scheduled at the terminal and would need three to four cranes when they berth,” a senior traffic division officer at JNPT told Business Standard.

The insurance survey officials will be coming to the facility on Friday as continued rains will not allow any survey at the site at this juncture, he added.

A ship-to-shore crane, also known as container crane is found at container terminals for loading and unloading intermodal containers from container ships.

“After having accessed the balance six cranes today (Thursday) where the report is satisfactory and cranes are in working condition, the terminal is ready to berth vessels. There will be no operational disruption due to those three damaged cranes,” informed the official.

All the three cranes that collapsed were of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Container Terminal (JNPCT), which is the port’s own terminal.

“About four vessels are scheduled per week at the JNPCT and we have spaced out the vessels in such a manner that usage of balance functioning cranes will allow operations to be carried out smoothly,” said the official.

Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT-DP World), Gateway Terminals India (GTI-APM Terminals) and Bharat Mumbai Container Terminal (BMCT)-Fourth Container Terminal are the other three terminals at the container port.

“We have not made any changes to vessel schedules and there is no plan to do the same. We are now only waiting for insurance survey to get carried out so that a report is prepared by the port team to be sent to the (shipping) ministry,” the traffic division official informed.

Amid the pandemic, JNPT is seeing its cargo volumes picking up steadily. Between April-July, the port handled a container traffic of 11,92,165 TEUs, about 80 percent of the total traffic it had handled in the same period last year.

Meanwhile, a JNPT spokesperson said operations at JNCPT may get impacted to some extent, but is too early to divulge details as surveys are still being carried out and officials have not been able to come out with any detailed report.

In July, JNPT handled 344,316 TEUs container traffic, about 19 per cent up from previous month.