Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

Visakhapatnam port turns 75

-Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

Red-Letter Day: M.S. Rao, Deputy Chairman of the Visakhapatnam Port along with Y. Jayanthi, Director (research), addressing a press meet on the eve of the Platinum jubilee celebration of the port in Visakhapatnam on Monday.

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Visakhapatnam Port Trust, which is the pride of Vizag will turn 75 on Tuesday and a series of events will be held to mark the occasion of Platinum Jubilee.

The Deputy Chairman of Visakhapatnam Port Trust, M.S. Rao, at a media conference here on Monday on the eve of the Platinum Jubilee said the passenger ship s.s. Jaladurga arrived at the port on the historic date of October 7, 1933 but the formal inauguration took place on December 19 of that year by the then Viceroy Lord Willingdon. The port was built at a cost of Rs.3.78 crores with three berths initially, and it had made giant strides since, he said. Last year, VPT handled 64.6 million tonnes of throughput last year and the target for the current fiscal was fixed at almost the same at 65 MT taking into consideration the competition and other aspects with Gangavaram Port emerging next door.

Till Monday, the VPT handled 33.8 MT of cargo this year as against 31.4 MT during the corresponding period last year. On the future of the port, Mr. Rao said it would have a very bright future, notwithstanding competition from Gangavaram port and other ports, and projects worth Rs.3,000 crores were under implementation to augment the port capacity to 125 MT by the year 2012.

The present capacity of VPT is 61 MT but it has already exceeded it. By 2012, the projected cargo is 80 MT and VPT had taken up projects to increase the capacity to 125 MT at a cost of Rs. 3,000 crores, half of which would come from the private sector, he disclosed.

Some of the major projects would be the general cargo berth at the outer harbour, which was being upgraded to handle 2 lakh DWT vessels as against 1.5 lakh DWT vessels, and mechanised handling facilities to be installed for coal at a cost of Rs. 400 crores. Besides, the conveyor system for handling iron ore was also being upgraded at a cost of Rs.200 crores for which a soft loan was being obtained from the Japan Bank of International Co-operation.

Replying questions on pollution, Mr. Rao admitted that some measure of pollution was inevitable as the port was handling coal and iron ore, but all measures were being taken to mitigate it and the port was investing Rs.8 crores on covering the coal stacking yards.

In future, Rs.10 crores would be spent on covering the iron ore conveyor belt. After the installation of mechanised coal handling facilities, pollution would be drastically reduced, he claimed.

He said he was officiating as the in-charge chairman as K.R Kishore had left on Sept. 27 on completion of his term. The new chairman is yet to be appointed.

Director (Research and Planning) Y. Jayanthi, explained the history of the port.

Traffic Manager K.S.D. Dattu Raju and Financial Adviser and Chief Accounts Officer K.V. Gupta were present.

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