August 30, 2008

Kolkata Port eying overseas port management contracts

BS recently reported that Kolkata Port Trust is looking for overseas contracts for development and management of port terminals and has offers from Nigeria and Myanmar for the purpose. As per report, KoPT has already presented the advisory business model as a concept to the government of India and is waiting for government permission, which it expects in a month.

Mr AK Chanda chairman of Kolkata Port said that “We are eyeing a significant global position particularly in the outbound port advisory and management business.”

Mr Chanda said that “It would start with project consultancy and then with experience, take up hands off management. However, it might take up management of port terminals from the start because it already had expertise in this field. For smooth operation, a standing arrangement has to be made by government of India and keeping all the pros and cons in mind, we have applied to the government. We have to take positions globally from now on if we intend to be a dominant player, otherwise others would take that position and in the advisory market, late entrants always suffer.”

He added that “There are 170 minor ports across India, out of which 45 are working at full capacity. All these ports are suffering from an acute shortage of technical expertise, so there is a huge domestic market to be tapped and I believe this model would be a very attractive source of revenue generation in the time to come for all ports across India which has the right skills.”

Kolkata Port is already running its consultancy service within the state in inland water development and hydrology, which generated revenue of INR 8 crore till date in the current fiscal.