Paradip Port operations suffer due to rains

Kolkata: Normal operations at Paradip port were badly hit in the past two days due to inclement weather. Heavy rains along with a windspeed of 90 km per hour lashed the port, forcing the authorities to raise cyclone signal no.3.

Ship movement to and from the port was particularly hit, a spokesman for Paradip Port Trust told Business Line over phone from Paradip. As a result, several berths remained vacant even as the number of ships waiting for the berths increased.

No ships could be either taken in or taken out of the impounded dock system on Sunday and Monday due to the unfavourable weather condition. As a result, six out of 14 berths remained vacant.

The number of ships waiting at the anchorage for berths was nine on Tuesday and these included three vessels due to load iron ore, two thermal coal and one chrome concentrate and one each due to unload coking coal, kerosene and sulphur. A few more are due to arrive shortly.

The loading/unloading of cargo, too, was affected as the hatches of the vessels could not be opened due to heavy downpour. The average daily throughput on Sunday and Monday was one-third of the normal daily average throughput of about 95,000 tonnes. The rail movement, though not suspended, was far from normal.

With the weather situation having improved a little, the operation of the port, as it was pointed out, too was limping back to normal on Tuesday.

'One vessel sailed out and we hope to receive one vessel in the afternoon,' the spokesman said, indicating that the normal rail movement too was resuming, slowly though. 'Barring unforeseen circumstances, we should be able to make up the shortfall in throughput in the remainder of the month,' he added.