The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the East Midnapore district administration to communicate whether it had received any report on law and order problem at Haldia dock, either by Haldia Bulk Terminals (HBT) or the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT).

The court asked the district administration to submit its response on Saturday.

The ABG-LDA run HBT had moved the court on October 16 seeking its intervention in restoring the law and order situation at the Haldia dock complex so that it could resume operations. Earlier, on October 11, HBT was served with an “ultimatum” to resume operations by October 19.

HBT said it had appealed repeatedly to the State Government seeking its help in improving the law and order so that the cargo handler could operate at its allocated berths.

Crisis

Since September 25, operations at the two HBT-handled mechanised dry cargo berths at HDC have come to a standstill. Nearly 3.5 lakh tonnes of minerals have got stranded in the process. Outgoing consignments that need to be cleared immediately include coking coal and limestone for SAIL and Tata Steel, and manganese ore for Shivam Steel.

The two major handlers at Haldia are HBT and Ripley & Co Ltd. HBT operates at two mechanised berths. Ripley has handling rights for nine non-mechanised berths.

HBT in August had intended to suspend operations at Haldia port citing “under-utilisation of capacity”. As KoPT had foreseen huge revenue loss in HBT’s withdrawal of operations from Haldia, it agreed to a deal to allocate more vessels to HBT berths. Later, problems were aggravated in September when HBT retrenched 275 workers to “right-size” its workforce to reduce losses.

>ayan.pramanik@thehindu.co.in

Related Topics