Worried over the sharp drop in
iron ore traffic (and with little prospect of the situation turning for the
better soon), the Paradip Port Trust (PPT) is tapping other commodities to
boost its total traffic throughput.
“We're open to handling any
commodity and in return we might consider offering additional facilities should
the trade ask for”, Mr G.J. Rao, Chairman of PPT.
Till November, the port's total
traffic throughput increased by a meagre 1% over the same period last year
while the iron ore throughput posted a negative growth.
“Till November, we handled 2.3
million tonnes (mt) of iron ore for exports against 5.9 mt in the same period
last year”, Mr Rao said adding “The drop thus was close to three mt and we're
yet to handle a single iron ore rake in December.”
“We would like to handle more coal ships and
to be able to handle large panamax vessels with full load (75,000 tonnes),
we're dredging the waterfront of the berth CQ1 and hopefully the targeted draft
of 14 metre as against the present 12.5 metre will be achieved by the end of
January or early February”, Mr Rao said.
“Our marketing team is trying
hard to attract more consumers of imported coal to the port but the problem is
that the competition is becoming intense every day”, he said and drew attention
to the formidable competition from a private port virtually next door.
Containerised traffic is also
receiving a good deal of attention. Last year, the port handled 6,000 TEUs,
mostly exports such as aluminium ingots, ferro chrome and the like.
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