Kolkata Port plans captive barge jetties for Haldia belt

Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) would soon bring out an expression of interest (EoI) to build captive barge jetties for large-scale industries in West Bengal’s industrial belt of Haldia.

The Haldia region accounts for major projects like South Asian Petrochemicals, Indian Oil Corporation, Exide, Shaw Wallace, Tata Chemicals, Haldia Petrochemicals, Mitsubishi Chemicals and Hindustan Unilever.

“A lot of industrial players in the state were looking for dedicated captive jetties, and had approached us. Within a few months, we are going to publish an EoI for captive barge handling jetties along the riverside, outside Haldia’s dock gate. Companies like Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Haldia Petroche-micals, Tata Metaliks, Hooghly Metcoke, NTPC and JSW are bringing a lot of cargo through the port. The EoI will identify a few,” said KoPT Chairman Manish Jain.

According to Haldia Development Authority officials, the region has seen an investment of about Rs 50,000 crore in recent years. The riverine port has two dock systems — Kolkata Dock and Haldia Dock Complex. “Once the jetties are in place, these industrial units can plan their cargo movements accordingly. The ship detention time would also come down, and this could save costs for these companies,” Jain said.

KoPT also plans to come up with a second complex at Salukkhali, near Haldia, with an investment of Rs 2,000 crore. “On June 22, we received about and it would be completed by 2013-14,” Jain said. The port is scheduled to add capacity of 100 million tonnes by 2017. This would involve an investment of Rs 15,000 crore. On the port’s plan, D P Patra, executive chairman, MCC PTA India Corp (Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group), said, “This is a positive development. We are looking forward to this, and will be able to comment in detail after looking into its feasibility.”