Chennai Port Trust (ChPT) has gone back on its previous year's plan of making

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itself a 'clean' port, without any handling of coal and such other dusty cargo. On a reversal of strategy, it has repositioned itself as a multi-cargo terminal, which will handle all categories of goods ranging from coal, iron ore and oil through sugar, edible oil and other perishables to containerised cargo.

“No port should be cargo specific for it would then become vulnerable to fluctuations in the market for that particular cargo,” said ChPT chairman, Capt Subhash Kumar. “It would be absurd for the port to give up these for the sake of beautifying the area.”

The premise to the initial plan of doing away with ‘dusty’ cargo was pollution and the hazard it posed to nearby residents, who have multiplied along with the development of the port and the city. As part of the revamp of coal handling, the port has invested Rs 40 crore on replacing trucks with conveyors for the initial offloading. It is expected to spend Rs 30 crore in further mechanisation of coal handling. “We would like completely mechanise whatever is possible as that definitely reduces scattering and hazard to humans,” Subhash Kumar said. Containers comprise 37.3% of the port’s cargo.

The port handled 46 million tonnes (mt) of cargo by the end of the third quarter of 2009-10, which is 5.5 per cent higher than the volumes handled in during the corresponding period the previous year. Its revenues stood at Rs.538 crore and profit before tax at Rs.180 crore, compared to Rs.503 crore and Rs. 253 crore the previous year.

“There was a dip in iron ore because of reduced demand from China. But, we were able to act on the demand for sugar and edible oil and increase our stakes in those goods,” Subhash Kumar said.

Its container handling grew marginally by 1.8 per cent, as the 1.5 million teu second container terminal was commissioned in September 2009. The planned Rs 3,686 crore mega container terminal has been cleared by the private public partnership appraisal committee on January 6, 2010. The proposed Chennai-Ennore port road connectivity project has been delayed due to an escalation in cost from Rs 160 crore to Rs 600 crore in the period from 2003, when it was initiated to 2009.