The Hindu Business Line : Paradip port clocks 16.3% rise in traffic

Kolkata April 2 Paradip Port Trust (PPT) has posted 16.34 per cent growth in traffic to 38.52 million tonnes (mt) in 2006-07 over 33.11 mt in 2005-06. In 2005-06, the growth was 10 per cent over 2004-05 (30.1 mt).

"In 2006-07, Paradip port achieved highest ever growth in traffic throughput," Mr K. Raghuramaiah, Chairman of PPT, told Business Line over phone from Paradip, adding that this had been achieved despite no addition to port capacity.

"The growth should be largely attributed to improvement in operational efficiency for which I must congratulate all sections of the port employees," he said.

The target for 2006-07 was set at 40.8 mt, including 3.5 mt of crude traffic.

"However, no crude traffic materialised during the year as IOC's Paradip-Haldia crude pipeline project, to be complete with a single-point mooring, is not yet ready for operation," he said.

"Let us hope that the IOC project will become operational during the current fiscal and some crude traffic is generated for the port."

In 2006-07, the port handled 24.86 mt of exports (21.69 mt) and 13.66 mt of imports (11.42 mt).

On the efficiency parameters, the average pre-berthing waiting time of the vessels dropped to 1.41 hours (1.48 hours) and the average turnround time to 2.54 days (2.57 days), while the average output per ship berth day increased to 11,795 tonnes (11,316 tonnes).

Cargowise breakups show that during the year, the throughput of iron ore at 11.88 mt (10.27 mt) grew 15.64 per cent.

The throughput of POL grew 51.21 per cent to 1.38 mt (0.9 mt); fertiliser raw materials (dry) to 2.86 mt (1.57 mt), a growth of 82.14 per cent; coking coal at 4.27 mt (3.75 mt) recorded growth of 13.62 per cent, while other cargoes rose to 5.54 mt (4.02 mt) a growth of 37.63 per cent.

However, the throughput of thermal coal at 12.47 mt (12.53 mt) was down 0.43 per cent, while that of container cargo at 31,000 tonnes (45,000 tonnes) saw a drop of more than 31 per cent.

The 20-year business plan for the port till 2027, being finalised by TransCare Logistics, would focus on how to enhance competitiveness keeping in view the changing requirements of the global trade as well as challenges to be posed by new ports due to come up on the Orissa coast, Mr Raghuramaiah said.

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