Last year’s rankings are all set to be repeated this year among top five major ports with not much change in traffic figures. Visakhapatnam Port, which was relegated from third to fifth position last fiscal due to variety of factors, is also all set to retain the fifth slot.
Though there is an increase of 4.6 per cent in cargo during first 11 months of 2014-15 by the major ports, there is no change in ranking, industry sources said.
Kandla is ahead of others with 85 million tonne followed by Paradip 64.5, JNPT (Nhava Sheva) 58.2, Mumbai 56.3, Visakhapatnam 53, Chennai 48.1 and Kolkata 40.5 million tonne. Cyclone Hudhud, fall in iron ore shipment due to mining problems, diversion of transhipment and dislocation due to mechanisation and dredging work being continued in the inner harbour had affected the volumes of cargo handled by Visakhapatnam Port. Some of the Kolkata-bound transhipment cargo also got diverted to Krishnapatnam.
An official of Visakhapatnam Port told The Hindu that they received a reprieve after Hudhud as the Special Point Mooring with a capacity to handle 10 million tonne of crude was found to be intact. The cyclone damaged the Offshore Tanker Terminal, which needs a major repair.
Visakhapatnam Port handled 55.56 million tonne as on March 20 as against last year’s 56.19 million tonne. During last fiscal, it recorded 58.5 million tonne and this year with few days left for end of financial year, it will be difficult to reach last year’s figure.
However, the completion of dredging to enable handling of Panamax vessels without lightening straight into inner harbour will increase the traffic to Visakhapatnam Port. Due to difficult process involved in rock dredging near the channel, entry of ships to the harbour is being regulated on alternate days.
The port, which has a cargo handling capacity of 85 million tonne, is also undergoing major expansion to handle 125 million tonne in three years mostly on BOT basis.
55.56 million tonnes of cargo handled as on March 20
