KOCHI: When the waters levels exceeded all known bounds during the great deluge, thereby halting road, rail and air traffic to Kerala’s commercial capital, the Cochin Port Trust became the focal point and a lifeline for the facilitation of relief materials.
The Port officials had taken all pre-emptive measures like stocking up drinking water and fuel for operations of generators, ensuring power supply to the operational area, which in turn ensured that cargo handling activities was not affected as the floods worsened. Sustaining clean water and food reserves in the city, about 1600 tonnes of drinking water and 18 tonnes of food materials were immediately received at the Port and disbursed off to various relief coordination centres.
“As coastal shipping transport become vital in relief, two berths at Cochin Port were earmarked for priority berthing of vessels bringing flood relief materials. Also, two godowns were assigned for storage of materials and medicines, free of charges,” said A V Ramana, chairman, Cochin Port Trust.
Aiding the movement of cargo, Centre & State Governments chipped in with exemptions in customs duty for relief material arriving at the port. Also what became vital in avoiding fuel shortage in the state was that BPCL was able to divert the coastal vessel Swarna Godavari to the Cochin Port from Mumbai with 50,000 metric tonnes of crude oil. Constantly supplying the defence forces in relief efforts, Naval ships INS Deepak, INS Mysore, INS Mumbai, INS Sharda and coast guard vessels ICGS Vijith and ICGS Vikram were also handled at the Port on a priority basis. Over the course of two weeks from the start of the deluge on August 15, the Cochin Port received and facilitated the dispersal of relief materials exceeding 12 lakh tonnes.