CHENNAI: Chennai Port, the third oldest port among the 12 major ones, is an emerging hub port on the east coast of India. This gateway port for all cargo has completed 126 years of glorious service to the nation’s maritime trade.
HISTORY
Maritime trade started way back in 1639 on the seashore Chennai. It was an open roadstead with exposed sandy coast till 1815. The initial piers were built in 1861, but the storms of 1868 and 1872 made them inoperative.
So, an artificial harbour was built. The operations started in 1881. The cargo operations were carried out on the northern pier, located on the northeastern side of Fort St George in Chennai.
In the first couple of years the port registered a traffic of three lakh tonnes of cargo, handling 600 ships.
Being an artificial harbour, the port was vulnerable to cyclones and accretion of sand inside the basin due to underwater currents, which reduced the draft.
Sir Francis Spring, a visionary, skilfully drew a longterm plan to charter the course of the port in a scientific manner, overcoming both man-made and natural challenges. The shifting of the entrance of the port from eastern side to the north eastern side protected the port to a large extent from the natural vulnerabilities.
By the end of 1920, the port was equipped with a dock consisting of four berths in the West Quays (WQ), one each in the East and South Quay along with the transit sheds, warehouses and a marshalling yard to facilitate the transfer of cargo from land to sea and vice versa. Additional berths were added to a berth at South Quay and another between WQ2 and WQ3 in the forties.
India’s Independence saw the port gathering development and momentum. The topography of the port changed in 1964 when the Jawahar dock, with a capacity to berth six vessels to handle dry bulk cargoes such as coal, iron ore, fertilizer and non- hazardous liquid cargoes, was carved out on the southern side.
In tune with the international maritime developments, the port developed an outer harbour named Bharathi Dock for handling petroleum in 1972 and for mechanised handling of iron ore in 1974. The iron ore terminal got a mechanised ore handling plant, one of the three such facilities in the country, with a capacity of handling eight million tonnes.
The Chennai Port’s share of iron ore export from the country is around 12 per cent. The dedicated facility for oil led to the development of oil refinery in the hinterland.
This oil terminal is capable of handling Suezmax vessels. In 1983, the port heralded the country’s first dedicated container terminal facility commissioned by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on December 18, 1983. The port privatised this terminal and is operated by Chennai Container Terminal Private Limited.
Having the capability of handling fourth generation vessels, the terminal is ranked in the top 100 container ports in the world. Witnessing a phenomenal growth in container handling year after year, the port is developing its second container terminal with a capacity to handle one million TEUs (containers) to meet the demand.
To cater to the latest generation of vessels and to exploit the steep increase in containerised cargo, the port is planning a Mega Container Terminal, capable of handling five million TEUs. It is expected to be operational from 2013.
The Chennai Port is one among the major ports having Terminal Shunting Yard. It also has its own railway operations inside the harbour on the east coast. The port has railway lines running up to 68 km. It handled 32 per cent of the total volume of the cargo and 5,343 rakes (2,92,776 wagons) during 2007-08.
The port with three docks, 23 berths and draft ranging from 12m to 16.5m has become a hub port for containers, cars and project cargo on the east coast. The port has handled an all time high of 57.15 million tonnes of cargo, registering an increase of seven per cent over previous year. It also registered an increase of 20 per cent in handling cars, from 1,14,756 units in 2006-07 to 1,37,971 units in 2007-08. Handling of containers saw a 27 per cent increase.
VISION
The long-term plan for Chennai Port envisages that the port will mainly handle 4Cs - containers, cars, cruise and clean cargo.