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Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata (SMP, Kolkata) registered a near five per cent decline in cargo throughput in FY22 due to steady rise in price of coal and fertilisers and an increase in freight rates of vessels making imports less attractive
SMP, Kolkata handled 58.175 million tonnes (mt) of cargo in 2021-22, against 61.368 mt in 2020-21. While Haldia Dock registered a decline of around six per cent at 42.877 mt, Kolkata Dock System saw a decrease of around four per cent at 15.30 mt (15.9 mt in FY21).
According to Vinit Kumar, Chairman, SMP, besides the steady rise in price of coal and fertilizers, container shipping rates also continued to remain highly volatile leading to a decline in cargo throughput. In 2021-22, as many as 2,957 ships called at the port vis-à-vis 3,189 ships in FY21. In terms of container traffic, the port witnessed seven per cent growth at 7,35,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2021-22, up from 6,87,357 TEUs in FY21.
Revival in trade volume
“We see revival in trade volume and we expect high single digit growth in trade volume in the current fiscal. We have finalised ₹1,700-crore projects and the process will start within the year. Aligning with the government, we have focused on ease of doing business and cost reduction to make the port an attractive destination for trade. These measures helped us successfully receive cargo, which was earlier handled from other eastern region ports of the country,” Kumar said at a press conference to discuss the annual performance here on Monday.
Petro products import by Bangladesh’s Mongla port via Kolkata Port has begun and may result in an additional cargo of about one million tonnes for the port.
Kolkata Port is implementing a night navigation system in association with IIT Chennai that will help ships move in and out of Haldia docks at night.
SMP has lined up investments worth ₹1,700 crore for augmenting capacity, modernising infrastructure, monetisation of asset and digitisation of operations, modernisation and creating infrastructure over the next two years. The projects under the National Gati Shakti plan will help create modern infrastructure and competitive logistics supply chain.
Projects worth ₹700 crore have already been completed in the last two years and ₹1,700 crore worth projects are under various stages of implementation
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