JNPT crane insurance covers full replacement along with loss of business

Clearing of damaged cranes alone to take over a month

With rains taking a breather in Mumbai after a two-day downpour, the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) at Navi Mumbai had its insurance survey team finally visit the damaged ship-to-shore crane site today along with port officials.

“The survey is on at present. The insurance covers full replacement of damaged cranes alongside the loss of business that would occur due to absence of these cranes. The (insurance) plan has both aspects covered,” a senior traffic division officer at JNPT told Business Standard.

Strong winds coupled with heavy rains hit three out of nine ship-to-shore cranes of JNPT on Wednesday. All the three cranes that collapsed were of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Container Terminal (JNPCT), which is the port’s own terminal.

“While the survey is on and this is the team’s first visit, in the meantime, the port will now be issuing a tender for removal of damaged cranes from the site. The port officials are now engaged in that,” informed the official.

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

“Though three cranes—no 6,7 and 8 have collapsed, these have collapsed in a manner that the crane no 9 cannot be used. So currently, we are functioning with five cranes. This is manageable, as a vessel typically needs three to four cranes. So operations may not get affected to that extent,” informed the official.

The cost of the three damaged cranes would be an estimated Rs 100 crore, said port consultants.

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 where operations are running smoothly at present.

“Clearing of damaged cranes alone is going to take one to one-and-half month. So it will take while for these cranes to get replaced,” said the official without divulging much details

Meanwhile, the terminal is awaiting two vessels to berth at JNPCT at present. However, one of the vessels would be berth later in the evening as officials are also checking for likely damage with other operational cranes.

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, mail sent to JNPT remained unanswered until the time for going to press.

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