V.O. Chidambaranar Port Trust has handled an all time record cargo traffic of 384.63 lakh tonnes in the financial year 2016-17, surpassing the previous year's achievement of 368.49 lakh tonnes registering an increase of 4.38 percent, said its Chairman S. Ananda Chandra Bose here on Tuesday while addressing a press conference. This performance, when compared to the target set at 395 lakh tonnes by the Ministry of Shipping, has a decrease of 2.63 percent.
The Port handled a record throughput of 6,42,098 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of containers during 2016-17 as compared to the previous year's container traffic put at 6,11,714 TEUs., with an increase of 4.97 percent. While imports accounted for 279.97 lakh tonnes registering an increase of 2.30 percent, exports accounted for 104.66 lakh tonnes registering an increase of 10.38 percent when compared to the previous year. The growth rate of 4.38 percent was registered than the previous year due to handling of higher volume of fertilizers, fertilizer raw material (dry), containerized cargo and general cargo. Infrastructure projects at a cost of ₹. 332.72 crore were awarded during 2016-17 and of these, various project works to the tune of ₹. 107.76 crore had been completed. Besides, infrastructure projects at a cost of ₹. 2311.44 crore were in progress at the Port.
These projects include development of truck parking terminal opposite Fisheries College under the Sagarmala scheme, construction of dedicated berth to handle coastal cargo, conversion of the eighth berth as container terminal on built-operate-transfer basis for a period of 30 years, development of North cargo berth -IV for handling of containers and other clean cargo through public private partnership on design, build, finance, operate and transfer (DBFOT) basis, deepening of channel up to 14.5-metre draught, dredging in front of coastal berth and others.
Referring to projects envisaged at an estimated cost of ₹. 1,014.85 crore, the Chairman said development works to facilitate handling of thermal coal to cater to the needs of emerging power plants, conversion of oil jetty to handle coal, mechanisation of coal berth, coal jetty would be taken up. Deputy Chairman of Port S. Natarajan, Traffic Manager U. Rajendran, Financial Advisor S. Shaanthi and Chief Mechanical Engineer C. Ravindran were present.