Paradip to handle 106.40mln tonne cargo by 2012

Bhubaneswar, Apr 03: With a record 38.52 million tonne cargo traffic during 2005-2006,the Paradip Port is set to register a capacity of handling of 106.40 million tonne cargo by 2012 with an investment of Rs 3500 crores.

The port has already initiated action to go ahead with as many as 30 projects to increase the capacity of the Port to 71.40 million tonne by 2007-2008 and 93.90 million tonne by 2010-2011, Paradip Port Trust Chairman K Raghuramaiah told newsmen here yesterday.

He said the port has registered 30 operational records during the year and earned a total operating income of Rs.572.40 crores as against Rs.513.30 crores during the previous year.

The PPT Chairman said the surplus profit of Rs 200 crores would be invested for funding new projects for the growth of the port as it had planned a cargo projection of 45.10 million tonnes by 2007-2008.

He said the centre has sanctioned Rs.154.84 crore to deepening the channel of the port from existing 12.8 meter to 18.7 meter to handle 1,25,000 DWT vessels as against 75,000 DWT vessels presently being handled by the port.

Mr Raghuramaiah said keeping gin view of the large scale steel plants coming up in the state,the Port has proposed to construct one berth for exclusively handling the iron ore at an estimated cost of Rs 505 crores and another berth for handling import of coke and coking coal at a cost of Rs 384 crores.

Both the project would be taken up on the built, operate and transfer(BOT) basis.

The PPT Chairman said a new dock system having six berths with provision to handle the fertilizer, food grain, containers and other cargos would be taken up which on completion would add 15 million tonne capacity to the Port. He further said the laying of off shore pipe line under the Mahanadi river would be completed by December next and the Indian Oil Corporation would start discharging crude oil from the ships to their storage tank at Paradip.

To a question, Mr Raghuramaiah said the port's ambitious target of handling 106.40 million tonne cargo by 2012 would in no way be affected with the construction of a major port at Dhamra jointly developed by the L&T and Tata &xD;and the minor port to be built by the South Korea Steel major POSCO.

He said while the Port, developed by the POSCO, would be a captive port handling only the traffic for the POSCO plant,the Dhamra port would not affect the growth of the Paradip Port as it has no taken the cargo to be handled by the new port into consideration while setting the future target of traffic.

The PPT Chairman admitted that there has been a sharp decline in handling of the container cargo by the Port but maintained that the Paradip Port would develop two dock for container cargo with the establishment of Container Terminal to attract the container operation all over the country.

UNI