No relief to KoPT woes, traffic dips drastically

There seems to be no end to the woes of Kolkata Port.

As per a recent document released by the Indian Ports Association (IPA) on the traffic handled by major ports in India, the traffic in Kolkata Port Trust has dipped 7.14 per cent to 36.72 million tonnes for the period from April to January, as against 39.54 million tonnes during the same period last year.

While the traffic in Kolkata Dock System (KDS) saw a 3.72 per cent drop during the ten month period to 10.23 MT compared to 10.62 MT last year, Haldia Dock System (HDS) saw a massive 8.39 per cent decrease in traffic to 26.49 MT against 28.92 MT during the same period previous year.

When asked about this, KoPT Chairman M L Meena said, “Most of the ports are showing a downward trend on traffic. The lowing down of economy has had an impact. Moreover, because of the problems in the mining sector, iron ore handling has also gone down. Adding to this, Indian Oil Corporation has stopped importing Rava crude, compared to about 2 million tonnes it used to do earlier.”

This is likely to have a huge impact on KoPT, which is in financial trouble.

It has a huge pension liability of an estimated Rs 150 crore annually of nearly 33,000 pensioners. According to officials it needs atleast Rs 3000 crore to take care of pensioners liability and other liabilities.

During the last financial year, the port had handled atleast 47 million tonnes during the last financial year. A top KoPT official blamed it on draft issues in the port.

“Since the port was unable to give enough importance to draft issues in Haldia port, it badly affected the port,” he said

Now, vessels first go to Paradip and Vizag to unload the cargo and then moves to Haldia with a draft-away label. The port had lined up several plans to address the issue but unfortunately it did not take off during the last year.

As per the IPA report, traffic to all the major ports in the country has seen a marginal drop of 0.24 per cent during the April to January period to 467.098 MT, as against 468.199 MT during the same period last year.