Paradip, Jan 19: Paradip Port retained its second positon at the end of the third quarter of the current fiscal ending on December 31 among the major ports of India.
In the nine months of the current financial year, Paradip Port handled 55.13 MMT traffic as against 52.39 MMT of cargo handled during the corresponding period of previous year( 2014-15) registering a growth of 5.23 per cent, PPT spokesman claimed on Monday.
The number of vessels handled by the Port accordingly has recorded a growth of 8.65 per cent during the period as the Port handled 1156 ships as against 1064 ships handled during the corresponding period of previous year (2014-15), he said.
The Port has already taken a slew of measures which has ensured improvement in productivity of ship day from 17,289 MT in 2014-15 to 19,856 MT for ship day in 2015-16 ( up to Dec,2015) witnessing a growth of 14.85 per cent.
Because of various initiatives, the spokesman said, record handling in cargo operation at PPT was witnessed in January this year.
He said On January 8 MV Sea Rising carrying Non-Coking Coal a/c Haldia Energy Ltd of West Bengal discharged in a single day record throughput of 35,800 MT Non-Coking Coal.
However, the above record was short lived as another vessel MV Vishva Vinay unloaded 36,895 MT of Non-Coking Coal in a single day on account of M/s. Tata Sponge & Iron Limited; an Odisha based company on January 17.
Similarly, the Mechanized Coal Handling Plant of Paradip Port loaded 1,20,600 MT of coastal Thermal Coal on 15.01.2016 which is the single highest day loading of Thermal Coal achieved at PPT which surpassed the previous record loading of 1,08,194 MT on 12.01.2016 within 4 days of having the previous highest record of handling Thermal Coal on a single day.
The Port recently on 05.01.2016 declared its facility of CQ-1/CQ -2 and South Quay for handling BabyCape ships upto 260 Mtrs. length, beam with 43 mtrs and draft of 14.5 mtrs, he said.
The Port infrastructure like road and railway and drainage system is accordingly being realigned to augment the cargo handling capacity matched with the discharge /load rate of a Baby Cape size ships.
The Port is already witnessing lot of queries from the various section of trade for regular calling of Baby Cape size ships shortly.
