Chennai port going green after HC clamp on dusty cargo

Wriggles out of recession to post profit of Rs 15 cr

Chennai:

After the clamp by Madras High court on handling dusty cargo, Chennai Port is trying to boost its image as a green port and is focusing only on clean cargos including cars, foodgrains and granite.

Addressing a annual press meet here on Friday, Chennai port chairman Atulya Mishra said that 80 per cent of the port’s cargo is clean cargo while stating that the port has registered an operating surplus profit of Rs 42 crore and Rs 15 crore net surplus profit after tax.

“We were anticipating loss worth Rs 50 crore following the loss of coal and iron cargo and the global recession. Many of the ports including Mumbai’s Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Trust growth was hit,” said Mishra.

Despite the clamp on coal and iron ore, Chennai port handled cargo worth 53.40 million tonnes this year, a drop of two million tonne from last year’s 55.71 million tonnes. And this financial year, Chennai port has fixed a target of 60 million tonnes. Surprisingly, the port registered a surplus of Rs 15 crore and Mishra attributed it to port’s marketing initiatives to identify alternative cargo to compensate the loss of volumes due to shifting of iron ore and coal have yielded positive results.

Interestingly, the port’s profit is also attributed to its austerity measures besides successfully implementing the special voluntary retirement scheme which has reduced the employees strength by around 800 and placed the port in a better position to face competition.

He also said the volume of foodgrains handled at the port grew to 3.5 lakh tonnes and due to the encouraging productivity at port, the state trading corporation will export one lakh tonnes per month through Chennai Port this financial year.

Mishra said the port has identified five projects worth Rs 935 crore this year. These include upgradation of Bharathi Dock II, which had been handling iron ore earlier, Jawahar dock (East) through which the coal had been handled in the past and supply and operation of Harbour Mobile Cranes and other cargo handling equipment. The projects would add about 15 million tonnes per annum to the existing port capacity.

He also said that Chennai Port which is identified as one of the ports for development under Cruise Shipping Policy by tourism ministry is planning to upgrade its cruise terminal and an amount of Rs 8.5 crore has been received for improvements at the Cruise Tourism Facilitation Centre.