Chtg Port invites offers from foreign crane operators

Chittagong: The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) is recruiting a team of skilled overseas operators to run its newly installed gantry cranes as the local manpower has failed to utilise the full potentials of the equipment.

It invited an international tender in this connection and opened the same on June 21.

Three international firms purchased the tender documents, but Saif Tech, the local agent of gantry crane supplier in Bangladesh, is the only one to submit quotation.

Sources at the CPA said it is scrutinising the quotation and other documents furnished by the Saif Tech. The port authority is expected to issue work order soon.

The bidder will have to provide such skilled manpower in a month after issuance of the work order, sources said.

The operators will be initially assigned for two years and the tenure might be extended later.

The CPA sources said they will recruit 16 skilled operators for its four rail-mounted gantry cranes, which were commissioned at the country's main seaport on January 30 this year.

The CPA bought four rail-mounted gantry cranes at a cost of Tk 1.51 billion in September, 2005 from Japan.

The Chittagong port installed such state-of-the-art equipment to enhance efficiency in container handling as the port is facing tremendous pressure of containers over the last few years. The growth rate of container handling at the port is increasing 14 per cent a year.

The CPA prefers only those overseas operators having vast experiences in operating such gantry cranes at the world's major ports like Singapore, the Philippines and Japan.

The CPA will offer international standard salary and other fringe benefits to those skilled operators, the port sources said.

Earlier, the CPA sent a team of local equipment operators to Japan for higher training in gantry crane operation.

But the trained operators have been failing to reach the target of handling containers here since the commissioning of the gantry crane at the Chittagong port.

The local operators are handling on average 12-13 boxes per hour, which is much below the standard level of 36-40 boxes. The CPA had also offered cash incentive to the local operators so that they could make the best use of the equipment.

The port officials said the rate of handling of boxes under newly installed modern equipment is similar to that of the traditional system.