The Hindu Business Line : Paradip port back to handling cargoes

Road movement of cargoes to and from Paradip port is limping back to normalcy after a gap of nearly three weeks. For the first time in past three weeks, about 200 trucks carrying chrome ore for exports arrived at the port on Monday.

However, the iron ore transportation into the port is yet to resume but the port authorities are hopeful of resumption of normal movement within the next few days. The Orissa Government has been urged to lift the restriction imposed on the truck movement to and from the port.

The restriction was imposed following the devastation caused by the floods in areas around the port so much so that there were breaches at several points on the 82-km long National Highway No.5A that connects the port with the mineral rich belt of Orissa.

Gradual resumption

"On Monday, the port handled about 72,000 tonnes of cargo as compared to more than 90,000 tonnes a day on an average in a normal situation," Mr K. Raghuramaiah, Chairman of Paradip Port Trust, told Business Line over phone from Paradip. "However, yesterday's traffic throughput has no relation with the gradual resumption of road movement which will take another couple of days to become normal."

In normal circumstances, the port handles on an average 2,350 trucks every day - an estimated 2,050 inward and another 300 outward. The inward trucks, bring into the port iron ore (1,700 of them) and chrome ore for exports (350), while the 300 outward trucks, are used for evacuation of imported coking coal and coke out of the port.

Although the rail movement of traffic to and from the port was by and large unaffected during the period, the suspension of road movement for three weeks had certainly hit the traffic throughput targeted for the month, the Chairman said. It might be noted that several bouts of storms and rains that lashed the port in the past couple of months had already affected normal cargo handling of the port.