Worried over the sharp drop in iron ore traffic and with little prospect of the situation turning for the better soon, the Paradip Port Trust is tapping other commodities to boost its total traffic throughput.

Mr GJ Rao chairman of PPT told Business Line that “We're open to handling any commodity and in return we might consider offering additional facilities should the trade ask for.”

Mr Rao said that “Till November, we handled 2.3 million tonnes of iron ore for exports against 5.9 million tonnes in the same period last year adding that the drop thus was close to 3 million tonnes and we're yet to handle a single iron ore rake in December.”

Mr Rao said that “We would like to handle more coal ships and to be able to handle large panamax vessels with full load (75,000 tonnes), we're dredging the waterfront of the berth CQ1 and hopefully the targeted draft of 14 metre as against the present 12.5 metre will be achieved by the end of January or early February.”

Traditionally coal, both imports and costal shipments, has been a major item of traffic of the port. Till November, the port's total traffic throughput increased by a meager one per cent over the same period last year while the iron ore throughput posted a negative growth.

(Sourced from BL)