Chennai port woos non-coal traffic

Chennai Port Trust (ChPT) has embarked on a ‘Mission Resurge Chennai Port – 2016’ initiative to revive the port’s cargo throughput, which has dwindled over the past few years due to the loss of coal traffic.

In 2010-11, the port handled 61.46 million tonnes (MT), its highest. This dropped to 52.54 MT in 2014-15 as the Madras High Court banned coal handling there because of high levels of pollution from the cargo.

“We need to find new cargo to compensate the loss of coal traffic. We will be approaching all the major stakeholders, including trade members in other States, to bring new cargo to the port,” said MA Bhaskarachar, Chairman, Kamarajar Port, who is holding additional charge as Chairman of ChPT.

In this regard, the port trust will hold meetings with exporters, importers and agents of granite blocks, cobble stones, barytes, oil companies, edible oil, fertilisers and project cargo, he told newspersons. In the coming weeks, trade meetings will be held in Ongole, Bengaluru, Salem and Karur, he said.

“Our endeavour is to provide trade with better service at a lower cost. We are working towards this,” he added.

For instance, at a recent board meeting, it was decided to roll back vessel-related charges by 50 per cent from January 2015 levels.

The ChPT recently reduced manning scale up to 56 per cent for general cargo ships, because of which the cost of deploying port labour has come down, he said.

Cyril C George, Deputy Chairman, ChPT, said Chennai port faces stiff challenge due to the emergence of four competing ports — Krishnapatnam, Karaikal, Kamarajar and Kattupalli. These ports attract dry bulk cargo, especially coal, which used to be handled by Chennai port.

Further, with the Adani Group developing a container terminal at Kamarajar port and taking over Katupalli port, the two ports, situated within 30 km, are targeting container traffic. All the competing ports share the same hinterland, he said.

Meanwhile, Distribution Logistics Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, a logistics services provider, will launch a container train service between Bengaluru and Chennai from the second week of December, said its Managing Director Karunakaran Sathianathan.

To begin with, the biweekly service will see monthly movement of 1,500-2,000 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs). The service will help in quick evacuation of boxes from the two private container terminals at the Chennai port, he said.