Beating the economy slowdown and adverse market conditions, the Visakhapatnam Port Trust has recorded 10% growth rate, the highest among major ports during the current fiscal.
The port, which was operational way back in 1933, has also overtaken the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust in handling cargo as per the latest figures. “We are confident of handling 70 million tonne by March 31 to improve our ranking from fourth to third among the major ports,” VPT Deputy Chairman P.L. Haranadh has told The Hindu.
As on December 3, the port handled a throughput of 47.66 million tonne as against 43.14 million tonne during the corresponding period last year registering an incremental volume of 4.52 million tonne.
Incidentally, all the ports put together have achieved a marginal growth rate. If the trend continues, the VPT will occupy the third slot after Kandla and Paradeep. The JNPT is likely to be relegated from third to fourth position. During the last fiscal, the VPT handled 65.30 million tonne. The previous best cargo handled by the port was 68.04 million tone in 2010-11.
Ahead of JNPT
After convincing the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, the port has provided end-to-end logistic solution for supply of thermal coal. As on October-end, the VPT is ahead of the JNPT by 1.3 million tonne and the gap is widening with former adding the lead by another million tonne in November.
The VPT has received an additional quantity of three million tonne of iron ore mainly because of renewal of supply agreements by the NMDC and the MMTC to Japan. Petroleum products, including POL and crude, have witnessed an increase by 2.4 million tonne as on December 3.
Container cargo
The container cargo has also gone up by 0.5 million tonne because of transshipment to Nepal. Coking coal has gone up by one million tonne. Thermal coal quantity has fallen, but the VPT officials have exuded confidence after their talks with the TNEB and they are expecting more thermal coal handling in the next few months.
