The Hindu Business Line : Haldia Dock working on growth strategy

Snapshot
Dock authorities plans mechanisation route to boost berth capacity.
Bids to be invited soon from private firms for supplying, operating, maintaining equipment

Kolkata April 10 The Haldia Dock authorities are working on a multi-pronged strategy to cope with the various challenges facing the dock.

The biggest challenge is how to achieve good growth in traffic throughput. In 2006-07, the growth was a meagre 0.28 per cent at 42.45 million tonnes (mt). "We have virtually reached saturation in our capacity," Mr Rajeev Dube, Deputy Chairman of Haldia Dock, told Business Line, pointing out that the pre-berthing detention of vessels at times went up to 18-19 days. "What can we do," he asks. "Despite detention, the ships keep coming presumably because they feel it is worth waiting." The dock, therefore, could not hope to grow without addition to capacity.

But then capacity addition alone will not be enough. Additional cargo too is critical as the dock is set to lose substantial quantities of crude traffic, an estimated eight to nine mt annually, once the Indian Oil Corporation's Paradip-Haldia crude pipeline is commissioned.

Crude traffic

According to indications available so far, the pipeline, to be complete with a single point mooring off Paradip port, is to be commissioned in the second half of the current fiscal. Which means, the flight of crude traffic during the period might be in the region of four to five mt. The Haldia dock authorities, therefore, have to find ways and means as to how to make up the shortfall in crude traffic — an estimated four to five mt in 2007-08 and eight to nine mt from 2008-09.

The strategy, therefore, presupposes addition to capacity as well as enrolment of new cargoes. Two new berths, two and 13, currently under construction, will be commissioned shortly, entailing an additional capacity of three mt. Mr Dube, however, felt that the actual addition to capacity would be more than that.

It should be possible to boost berth capacity through mechanisation and the dock authorities are mulling private route for mechanisation. The bids would be invited soon from the private firms for supplying, operating and maintaining cranes and other handling equipment.

"The selected firms, however, will be under the supervision of the dock authorities," he said. "We also have plans to modernise existing berths like Number 5 and Number 4B, and the container berths, Number 10 and Number 11, which will have modern container handling facilities."

Dredging strategy

The dock authorities have also reworked its dredging strategy and amended its contract with the Dredging Corporation of India. The essence of the new arrangement is more flexibility in operation depending on the requirements.

A beginning has been made and the results are already visible. The average draft at Jellingham and Auckland, the two points requiring maximum dredging attention, in March this year was more than that in the same month in earlier years.

"We also hope that the Rs 421-crore River Regulatory Scheme, pending with the Centre for a long time, will be cleared soon," Mr Dube observed. "Once the draft improves, ships calling at the dock will have higher average parcel load."

Finally, the mindset of the workers too, as he emphasised, must change. "In a riverine port, many things depend on river tide and the response of the workers to such a situation has to be very fast," he said, pointing out that if a tide was missed, the ship movement would be hit.

"We know 2007-08 will bring us little cheers and the situation in 2008-09 too might not improve much but we will be on the growth path from 2009-10," Mr Dube added.