The Hindu : Chennai Port Trust plans cruise services to Southeast

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 03, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Chennai Port Trust plans cruise services to Southeast

By N. Ravi Kumar

CHENNAI APRIL 2. The North Quay in Chennai could soon emerge as a gateway to tourists bound for Singapore and Malaysia, as the Chennai Port Trust management is evaluating prospects of introducing cruise services to the Southeast Asian nations.

The Trust, its Chairman, P. Baskaradoss, said was all set to invite expression of interest from operators for improving embarkation facilities, sheds and customs as a prelude to introduction of the service.

Apart from reviving the operation of Chennai-Singapore cruise, there was a proposal to run similar services to tourist destinations in the South-East Asia and to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

"The operation of cruise vessels offers abundant opportunity," he said at the annual press meet here today, aboard the `Thangam' floating crane, ChPT's new acquisition.

The launch of the cruise services was a key component of a strategic plan chalked out by the ChPT to tide over the rough weather it ran into after the transfer of over ten million tonnes of thermal coal to the Ennore port. Other facets of the plan included greater emphasis on efficiency improvement with technology and customer-friendly measures besides attracting new clean cargo. Allotment of land to private parties for construction of tankage facilities for import/export of liquid bulk cargoes and promoting car exports were also planned.

Rocked by the coal transfer for the second consecutive fiscal, the ChPT, whose total traffic in 2002-03 stood at 33.68 million tonnes against 36.11 MTs and 41.22 MTs in the previous two financial years, also has its sights focussed on simplification of procedures and redeployment and rationalisation of manpower.

Noting that the 2002-03 performance, however, surpassed the target (32.50 MTs) set by the Ministry of Shipping, Mr. Baskaradoss attributed the drop in the cargo mainly to transfer of the entire thermal coal handled by the ChPT for the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. The net surplus of the port for 2002-03 was Rs.54.63 crores against Rs.77.91crores in the previous fiscal.

While there was a marginal improvement in the handling of petroleum products, iron ore, coking coal and containers, the major drop was in thermal coal — from 7.19 MTs (in 2001-02) to 2.68 MTs. The stabilising factors in 2003-04, the team of ChPT senior officials, including the Secretary, K.P. Ramanathan and the Traffic Manager, P.K. Abraham, said would be the export of sugar, rice, wheat and a host of other edible clean cargo soon.

Electronic exchange services

The port embarked on implementation of user-friendly electronic web-enabled message exchange services. On Tuesday, it introduced web-enabled application process for interface with users for marine and cargo handling billing, sourcing information about vessels and for engaging gangs (workforce).

Counting the decision of the Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited to continue with the port among the gains, Mr. Baskaradoss said, apart from new cargoes in the form of steel billets, hot briqueted iron fines, iron ore pellets, the ChPT "handled manganese ore after a gap of five years".

Apart from rationalising its levy structure and "remove certain anomalies", the port, as part of an effort to "weed out surplus manpower" was offering a special voluntary retirement scheme till April 30. The ChPT identified 2,540 employees as surplus and the port users agreed to bear a portion of the financial outgo.

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