VPT stands 5th in cargo handling in last fiscal

Visakhapatnam: Despite all odds and a private port in the backyard, the Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) handled 57 million tonnes of cargo during the last financial year, notching up the fifth position among the 12 major public sector ports in the country. Kandla Port in Gujarat topped the list, followed by Paradeep, JNPT and Mumbai ports.

All the public sector ports registered a growth of 4 per cent while the private ports ended up with just 1 per cent, VPT Chairman M T Krishna Babu told The Hans India on Friday. He said the cargo handling came down as there was a slump in handling of coal and iron ore. The import of coal is gradually coming down as the government insisted that all the power plants use domestic coal.

Earlier the ratio was 60:40 for import and domestic coal and the power ministry wanted total use of domestic coal to reduce import burden. However, the import of coking coal will continue as it is mostly used by the steel plants, the Chairman said.

The iron ore export dropped sharply after the MMTC MoU with Japan and South Korea expired in March last year, resulting in loss of four million tonnes of handling. The MoU was renewed for 10 years and in the current financial year, the VPT is expecting to handle 10 million tonnes of iron ore.

Citing other reasons for lesser handling of cargo, the Chairman said there was no economic activity in Andhra Pradesh for the last many years and the Port is handling most of the cargo being generated from hinterland of Chattisgarh, Odisha and Madhya Pradesh.

Similarly the steel industry is also doing bad. There is a hope in the ensuing years as the steel companies slashed the prices by Rs 5,000 per tone and import of steel from China has been stopped. "We have a capacity to handle 93 million tones but we are now handling only 50 per cent of our capacity", Krishna Babu said.

By KMP Patnaik