The Hindu Business Line : Haldia dock users worried over poor navigability of Hooghly

Major power utilities, steel plants, refineries and chemical companies, both in private and public sectors, scattered over eastern, northern and southern regions but all users of Haldia dock, face an uncertain future as the problem of the poor navigability of the Hooghly river worsens.

The depth of the river at Jellingham and Auckland, two key points in the river, has dropped to 3.9 metres and four metres respectively, sending shock waves among the dock authorities, shipping lines, shippers and the cross-section of users of the dock. The minimum depth at Jellingham should be five metres and at Auckland, 5.5 metres.

Opting for other ports

Addressing newspersons here on Friday, Mr R.K. Burman, Secretary of Haldia Dock Officers’ Forum, expressed apprehension that the steadily declining depth would only entail closure of the dock before long. The drop in depth of the river would force the ships to carry lower average parcel load per shipment, entailing higher cost on the part of importers and exporters.

Already, some users, as it was pointed out, had started opting for other ports. For example, a private sector steel plant, a major user of Haldia dock for exporting its finished products at the rate of 20,000 tonnes a month on an average, has stopped routing its exports through Haldia and has switched over to some west coast port even as such an exercise involves substantial additional transportation cost.

A private sector producer of coke, so far using Haldia to meet 45 per cent of its requirement of imported coking coal, has cut down on imports through the dock to 40 per cent and stepped up imports through Paradip, at higher rail freight.

Some of the public sector steel plants, it was pointed out, were making more use of Visakhapatnam port vis-À-vis Haldia in view of the present situation. Several power utilities in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, all dependent on Haldia dock for supplies of coal, some by the coastal route, too are worried.

Delays

Mr Burman would attribute the present crisis to several factors namely, the delay on the part of the Union Government to clear the River Regulatory Scheme, which is designed to improve the navigability of the river and the failure of Dredging Corporation of India to deploy the number of dredgers as contracted (out of contracted six only three are now in operation and one of them is 35 year old and in May there was only one dredger) for undertaking the required maintenance dredging and capping it all, the apparent lack of awareness of both the State and the Central Governments about the probable fallout of the closure of the Haldia dock and the impact on the country’s economy.

This was surprising, he said, pointing out that in 2007-08, the dock handled 43.54 million tonnes of traffic and posted an operational surplus of Rs 494.8 crore.