KoPT aims to reduce turaround time to stay competitive

Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT), which is striving to shed its tag as an expensive port, is working on reducing turnaround time of ships to 3.5 days from 4 within a year, a top official said today.
KoPT has significantly reduced turnaround time from 4.8 days last fiscal to 4 now.
"Turnaround time of ships in a port is a major area of our focus as it makes a port costlier for users. We are trying to reduce the average turnaround time from 4 days now," KoPT chairman Vinit Kumar said during an interactive session at the Merchants' Chanmber of Commerce today.

S Balaji Arunkumar, deputy chairman of KoPT said that reducing the timeframe to an average of 3.5 days in a year's time is a big challenge for a riverine port.
The turnaround time of a ship is calculated from the point it moves from sandheads and returns to it.
The thrust areas identified by the new chairman of KoPT include ease of doing business and raking up reveue for a sustainable turnaround.
Export of trucks from the port has just commenced from KoPT to Bangaldesh opening up a new revenue stream. It is also harnessing its land parcels to shore up revenue.

KoPT is also targeting an 8 per cent cargo growth in the current fiscal.