PARADIP: Paradip Port Trust (PPT) has achieved an all-time cargo record of 76.38 million tonnes during financial year 2015-16 as against the previous year traffic of 71.01 MT, exhibiting a growth of 7.57 per cent.
Informing this to mediapersons on Sunday, PPT Chairman Rinkesh Ray said with this, PPT retains second position in cargo throughout among all major ports consecutively for the past three years.
The port has also created a record by handling 7.61 MT in a single month in March, 2016 surpassing its previous best of 7.09 MT handled in February 2016, he said.
During the year, the berth day output has achieved 21,139 million tonnes as against 17,736 MT which translates to 19.18 per cent. By improving port efficiency parameters, PPT has handled 1,561 ships during 2015-16 as against 1,476 during the previous year with a reduced berth occupancy of 66 per cent from 77 per cent, Ray said.
An all-time record of 23.76 million tonnes of thermal coal was handled mechanically during 2015-16 surpassing the previous record of 21.33 MT during previous year.
The PPT Chairman said the port has earned Rs 1,173.03 crore during 2015-16 as against Rs 1,160.46 crore in 2014-15. The net surplus after income tax stands at Rs 309.37 crore as against Rs 275.57 crore during the previous year.
On future plans, Ray said the port has taken up various projects to increase the capacity from 118.50 MPTA to 325 MPTA by the year ending 2025 and PPT would become the highest capacity port in the country.
A multi-purpose berth is being built to handle clean cargo including containers on BOT basis with an estimated cost of Rs 430.76 crore which would be operational by March, 2019.
PPT is also constructing a deep draft iron ore berth on BOT basis at an estimated cost of Rs 740.19 crore which would be operational by March, 2019, he said, adding that a deep draft coal berth is also being built on BOT basis at an expenditure of Rs 470.01 crore.
Further, there is a proposal on capacity augmentation under Sagarmala Project of the Central Government to develop an outer harbour at an estimated cost of Rs 4,179 crore to handle Cape-size vessels up to two lakh DWT with a draft of 22 metres, Ray said.