The Hindu Business Line : ‘10 dredgers will work in Hooghly by Dec’

Kolkata, Oct 28 By December, there will be as many as 10 dredgers working in the Hooghly near Haldia dock, according to Dr A.K. Chanda, Chairman of Kolkata Port Trust, thus allaying fear that the dock is going to be closed due to the depth problem in the river.

“There is no question of declaring the Haldia dock closed, as the measures we’ve adopted to improve the navigability of the river near the dock have already started yielding results, and for December, we’ve announced an average draft of 7.1 metres, which is the same as that in December last year,” Dr Chanda said, while addressing the members of the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce here.

Dredger Availability

As he pointed out, the State-owned Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) had already diverted one dredger from the Paradip port to Haldia. Another dredger, currently under repair, would arrive at Haldia shortly.

A third dredger — which is a cutter-suction type and generally used for capital dredging and currently deployed near oil jetty of Haldia dock — is being sent to the river for maintenance dredging.

A Russian dredger currently deployed in Sethusamudram project would be made available for Hooghly dredging soon, he said.

Yet another DCI dredger, under repair, would be sent to Haldia in end November.

Capping it all, steps had been initiated by the Union Government through Transchart to acquire two dredgers on charter and these dredgers would, in all probability, arrive by December.

Right now, there are only three dredgers operating in the Hooghly.

Dr Chanda conceded that the depth in the Hooghly near Haldia dock was a matter of concern.

This had been caused partly because of the non-availability of the required number of dredgers since April.

Against the contracted five dredgers for the whole year and the sixth one for 120 days, only three dredgers were available and the DCI, despite best effort, could not do much in this regard.

More measures

But then, as he indicated, deployment of a number of dredgers would not solve the navigability problem. Also needed was the river training programme. From November 15, bank protection and other measures would take place at Nischindipur along the river and from December 15 similar measures would be implemented at Ghoramara.

Also, a move was afoot to launch as early as possible the massive River Regulatory Scheme, also covering capital dredging.

The scheme, estimated to cost more than Rs 900 crore, was with the Union Government. The emergence of a new channel with higher depth, as much as six metres, was also holding out hope. However, a clearer picture of this would be available once the survey, now in progress, had been concluded.

Earlier, the Chief Secretary of West Bengal, along with the Transport Secretary, Commerce & Industry Secretary and Environment Secretary, discussed with KoPT Chairman and other senior officials of the port the situation at Haldia.

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