The Hindu Business Line : Record handling at Kochi port

THE Kochi port has handled an all-time high annual traffic of 140.95 lakh tonnes during 2004-05, surpassing the previous year's traffic of 135.70 lakh tonnes. It also handled an all-time record of container traffic of 1.85 lakh TEUs during the year.

As regards the productivity parameters, the port achieved average pre-berthing detention time of 11 hours, average turnaround time of 2.6 days and average output per berth per day to the tune of 8,497 tonnes as against the previous figures of 10.4 hours, 2.5 days and 7,799 tonnes respectively.

A total of 1,126 vessels including 19 cruise vessels visited the port during the year, Dr Jacob Thomas, Chairman of the port, said in a statement.

Referring to the financial performance, he said the port had earned a record operating income of Rs 212.15 crore and operating surplus of Rs 65.72 crore as against Rs 203.25 crore and Rs 60.25 crore respectively during the previous year. The port could able to reduce the operating ratio steadily over the years and achieved operating ratio of 69.02 per cent as compared to 70.43 per cent during last year and 81.63 per cent in 1999-2000.

The chairman said a major achievement was witnessed in the reduction of dredging expenditure over the years with the innovative scheme of draft based dredging introduced four years back. While the expenditure on maintenance dredging was Rs 39.2 crore during 1999-2000, it is as low as Rs 28.01 crore during 2004-05.

He pointed out tenders for the first stage capital dredging clubbed with the annual maintenance dredging for 2005-06 have been invited. As many as four firms have submitted the tenders and are under scrutiny.

The dimensions of the existing channel are not enough to cope up with the requirements of the future generation vessels. Moreover, it is confined to the inner harbour only with very limited drafts. This requires the development of a channel, which could cater to the needs of future inner harbour movement and also encompass outer harbour that is invariably to be developed. Such channel should be able to facilitate navigation of a vessel, which is designed to carry 10,000 plus TEUs capacity with 16 m draft, he said.

The approximate investment would be to tune of Rs 485 crore. It requires four years to complete the project from the date of commencement. The Public Investment Board proposal for the Government funding for dredging, deepening and widening the navigational channel is under submission and it will be cleared soon.

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