The Hindu Business Line : Bumpy NH41 impacts cargo movement at Haldia

AN extremely bad condition of the 55-km long National Highway 41, connecting Haldia dock with National Highway 6 stretching from Kolkata to Chennai, is affecting movement of road-borne traffic to and from the dock.

The road transport operators are reluctant to carry cargoes along National Highway 41 as movement is inordinately delayed and causes damage to their vehicles. The movement of containers, both empty and loaded, has been badly hit. Worried dock authorities, therefore, have taken up the matter with appropriate authorities but with little effect so far.

The widening of NH 41 was taken up as part of the port connectivity work under the National Highway Development Programme of the NDA Government at the Centre. However, the pace of work slowed down following the change of the Government. Unless the condition of the road improves in immediate future, the flow of road-borne traffic to and from the dock will be further hit, say dock sources.

Meanwhile, the dock authorities have initiated work on improvement of the condition of the roads within the dock area. About 3-km long main road within the dock has already been concretised and work on the arterial roads has been taken up. "We would like to spend about Rs 35 crore on improvement of infrastructure in the dock," according to sources.

``There will be hard standing of 40,000 sq m of area behind the berth numbers 10 and 11 to facilitate storage of containers,'' the sources added.

The dock authorities, it is further learnt, will respond favourably to the request of TM International Logistics, the logistics service providing company under the Tata Group, for additional space to augment the company's storage capacity. The company, which has taken the berth number 12 of the dock on long-term lease, has already got about 14,000 sq m of space for storage. It is now asking for an additional 54,000 sq m.

Two ship-to-shore cranes for which orders have been placed with McNally Bharat are likely to be delivered within a year or so. The cost of the cranes is estimated at Rs 40 crore. The dock authorities are also mulling acquisition of four RTGs (rubber tyred gantries) at an estimated cost of Rs 8 crore. However, the orders for the cranes are yet to be placed.

The construction of the new berth, when completed, would boost the traffic of non-hazardous chemicals and dry bulk, dock sources added. The proposal for the berth has been cleared by the board of trustees and the details are now being worked out. The cost is estimated at Rs 25 crore.