Andhra Pradesh: Visakhapatnam Port Trust sets record of handling 72.72 mmt of cargo

Visakhapatnam: Visakhapatnam Port Trust has set a record of handling 72.72 million metric tonnes of cargo during the fiscal 2019-20.

Briefing on the occasion, Visakhapatnam Port Trust Chairman K. Rama Mohana Rao and Port Deputy Chairman P L Haranadh dedicated this historic achievement to the contribution made by the trustees, PPP operators, stevedoring agents, shipping agents, contractors, railways, customs, district administration, etc., and employees of the port and their families.

Visakhapatnam Port handled 72.72 million metric tonnes of cargo during the financial Year 2019-20 as against 65.30 million metric tonnes handled during 2018-19. Thus, the Port has achieved an incremental growth of 11.5 per cent i.e., 7.42 million metric tonnes. The growth of 11.5 per cent achieved by the Port is the highest growth in all Major Ports in India.

With this, Visakhapatnam Port has scaled up to the third position among the Major Ports after Kandla and Paradip Ports, surpassing JNPT and Mumbai Ports.

According to sources, this is the best ever cargo handled in the 86 years history of Visakhapatnam Port since 1933 as it surpassed the nine-year-old record of 68.00 million tonnes, handled by the Port in 2010-11, when the private ports like Gangavaram and Krishnapatnam were not active at that time.

The growth in the cargo handling comes in the wake of the economic slowdown in the financial year and subsequent impact on the EXIM trade due to coronavirus outbreak.

The principle commodities handled during the year 2019-20 by Visakhapatnam Port, include crude oil and POL (18.92 MMT); iron ore and pellets (14.39 MMT); coking coal (7.45 MMT); steam coal (9.27 MMT); containers 5.03 Lakh TEUs. The commodities contributed to this growth are mainly iron ore and pellets (41%); coking coal (28%); crude oil and POL (16%) and containers (12%).

Visakhapatnam Port witnessed a record growth in Nepal bound container cargo. During this year, the Port handled 42,550 number of containers for Nepal against 16,292 number of containers handled last year, thus registering a growth of 161 per cent. With this Visakhapatnam Port has emerged as a premier gateway port to Nepal traffic, surpassing Kolkata Port.

Similarly, development of railway infrastructure, electrification of major coal siding resulted in availability of railway rakes and substantial evacuation of cargo. During this financial year, Visakhapatnam port has handled 32.1 Million tonnes of Railway Traffic, registering a growth rate of 16.7 per cent.

Further, the Port has registered improvement of various parameters like turn-round time of the vessel, output per ship berth day and pre-berthing detention. During last financial year, Visakhapatnam Port has completed two berths in the Inner Harbour EQ-2 and EQ-3 with 14.5 mtrs. draft at a cost of Rs.198 crore with a capacity of 6.45 million tonnes per annum.

The mechanised terminals of iron ore and coal have been able to discharge / load cargo at very high productive levels, thus reducing the turnaround time of the vessels. These infrastructure improvements and capacity augmentation measures facilitated handling of vessels at Visakhapatnam Port at higher level of efficiency and better productivity thus reducing the logistic cost of the customers.