Kolkata port plans equipment deployment scheme in 2 berths

In a bid to boost productivity at Haldia dock, the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) proposes to introduce a new equipment deployment scheme in two of the dock’s berths namely, number 2 and 8, which mainly handle dry bulk items.

The essence of the new arrangement is this: the private equipment supplier to be selected by the port authorities through the tendering process will deploy mobile harbour cranes in these two berths such that the ship to shore operation will be done by these cranes. As a result, it should be possible to handle in these berths gearless vessels with larger average parcel load.

The present arrangement of equipment deployment does not bring much revenue to the dock authorities. The users of a berth choose their own equipment supplier and the output is generally as low as 7,000-8,000 tonnes per berth per day.

“Under the new arrangement, the importers will take delivery of the cargo from the dock authorities who will be responsible for the deployment of cranes and therefore unloading of the cargo from the ships and finally the transfer of the cargo from the berths to the backup area,” Dr A.K. Chanda, Chairman of KoPT, told Business Line here on Monday, pointing out that the two berths selected for the proposed operation would be having sizeable backup area. Once the new arran gement came into force, the productivity will improve because average daily output per berth per day should more than double, the average turnaround time will improve and the pre-berthing detention will drop, he said.

“We’ll stipulate minimum guaranteed productivity per day per berth for the equipment supplier who will be rewarded for exceeding the minimum benchmark and penalised for the underperformance,” Dr Chanda said.

Similar experiment

“Encouraged by our experiment with container traffic at Kolkata Dock system where the deployment of mobile harbour cranes in two berths in the similar way has yielded results, we’ve decided to replicate the same at Haldia in respect of dry bulk cargo.”

The proposed scheme would take time to implement – not before 2008, the KoPT Chairman indicated, explaining that the selection of the equipment supplier through the tendering process would take time. Also, the selected supplier had to be given time to procure new equipment.

Dr Chanda seemed convinced that the loss of revenue to be caused by the flight of a large chunk of the crude traffic currently being handled at Haldia to Paradip within the next few months could be compensated to a large extent once other berths of the dock too were brought under the proposed scheme.