The Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) will soon invite expressions of interest for construction of captive barge jetties at Haldia. “We will go by the Ministry's guidelines in this regard”, Mr M.L. Meena, Chairman, KoPT, told Business Line .

The Haldia-based Hooghly Metcoke, a Tata Steel Group company, has shown interest in a captive jetty, according to Mr Meena. Hooghly Metcoke currently requires about 1.2 million tonnes of coal to produce coke for Tata Steel's Jamshedpur plant and half of it is imported through Haldia and the other half through an Odisha port.

Since the requirement of imported coal is likely to go up with the projected increase in production, the company would like to have a cargo-handling facility of its own. Renuka Sugar, another Haldia-based company, too had earlier shown interest in a similarly facility and indicated a cargo throughput of one million tonnes. “However, the company is not pursuing the proposal any more presumably because its Haldia plant is now closed,” he said.

Several factors are believed to have weighed heavily in favour of captive barge jetties. The port will not be required to invest on the construction of the jetties, nor will it be required to chase traffic.

The jetties will be located on the river front to avoid the limitations of lock operation hitting the existing berths within the impounded dock.

Also, it should facilitate a two-port operation. Currently, the limited navigability of the river is causing huge problems to the port as well as users. The average parcel load of the vessels calling at Haldia is declining. It might be noted that the Haldia dock authorities' earlier plan of having a river jetty (outer terminal one) has not made much headway. This is because the project has been incorporated in the proposed transloading scheme now mired in a legal battle between Odisha Government, Shipping Ministry and Kolkata Port Trust in the Supreme Court.

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