The Hindu Business Line : Cochin Port Trust moving to 24/7 work culture

Kochi, June 27 In its efforts to improve efficiency and ensure faster turnaround of vessels, the Cochin Port Trust is implementing 24x7 work in the port from July 1.

Even though the port has been working in three shift operations, a lot of time is lost due to shift changeovers and recess hours. The objective is to implement a ‘hot seat exchange system’ to avoid time delays and to ensure that the change of duty will be taken place in an ideal manner, the Port Chairman, Mr N. Ramachandran, told Business Line.

With the introduction of 24x7 work, it hopes to attain higher productivity and speedy turnaround of vessels, he added. According to him, the port had held discussions with the trade unions prior to the implementation of the new system in the port. The genuine difficulties faced by the port workers with regard to transportation and canteen facilities would be addressed by the port.

He said the port would initiate discussions with the officials of the State Road Transport and Water Transport to make sure that transportation facilities are available to workers. The port had also held discussions with various port users such as steamer agents, Custom House Agents Association and Chambers of Commerce to ensure that their services should be available to the port in a matching manner to 24/7, he said.

“Once we are able to provide better services to the trade, we presume that the trade will also approach us with more cargo support,” he said. The port is also thinking of introducing an incentive system to the trade for faster cargo clearance, he said and reminded that there will also be a disincentive for underperformance also.

Welcoming the new initiative, Mr Suresh Joseph, General Manager, DP World, said the container terminal would soon achieve better productivity with the introduction of the new system as the ships would sail faster resulting in productivity improvement. As far as container terminal is concerned, he said the implementation of the new system would make the port in a position to showcase its higher productivity as well as attracting more mainline vessels.

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