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The New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT) has initiated the process of mechanising two of its berths. One of them — berth 16 — is likely to be completed by January.
MT Krishna Babu, Chairman of NMPT, said that around ₹430 crore is being invested on the mechanisation of the berth 16 at the port for handling bulk cargo. The berth will have cargo handling capacity of 6.73 million tonne per annum (mtpa).
Advantages
Stating that coal and other bulk materials are handled in a semi-mechanised way now, he said the new facility will provide end-to-end mechanisation. This will bring in a lot of improvement in the air quality, as there will be no intermediate manual handling in mechanised process.
On the other infrastructure project, Babu said NMPT will also take up the mechanisation of berth 14 for handling containers and other cargo. The port has issued RFQ (request for quotation) for this project.
The port authorities are trying to award the project by the end of this financial year. The port should be able to operationalise the berth by March 2020. He said that around ₹230 crore would be invested for the mechanisation of berth 14.
The port handled 43,973 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers (6.41 lakh tonnes of containerised cargo) till July 30 of 2018-19 as against 30,087 TEUs (4.54 lakh tonnes) in the corresponding period previous fiscal, registering a growth of 46 per cent.
Cargo handling
The total cargo handling at the port stood at 14.04 million tonnes (mt) till July 30 of 2018-19 as against 13.05 mt in the corresponding period of the previous year, recording a growth of 7.63 per cent.
To a query, he said the port has set a target to handle 45 mt of cargo for 2018-19.
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