Ports in Vizag region see decline in cargo handling

VDS Rama Raju / Chennai/ Visakhapatnam Apr 10, 2012,
Business Standard
The three ports in the Visakhapatnam region saw a decline in cargo handling due to a drop in iron ore exports.

Visakhapatnam, Gangavaram and Kakinada ports together lost about 5.8 million tonne iron ore in 2011-12 compared with the previous year, ports sources told Business Standard.

At Vizag port, iron ore was down to 10.3 million tonne (mt) in 2011-12 from 14 mt in 2010-11. Gangavaram and Kakinada handled 2.1 mt and 750,000 mt as against 2.5 and 1 mt in 2010-11.
Government restrictions on iron ore exports, increase in duties and stoppage of mining in Karnataka were the main reasons for the drop in ore exports from these three ports, port sources said.

Apart from iron ore, petroleum products handling also declined by about 830,000 tonnes at Vizag port. “Due to shifting of crude transshipment to Paradeep port, we lost in petroleum products,” port sources said.

Cargo handling was, therefore, down to 67 mt at Vizag port in 2011-12 (68 mt in the preceding year). However, the port gained in container cargo to 4.2 mt in 2011-12, which was 2.5 mt tonne in the previous year.

On the other hand, Kakinada port handled 9.7 mt of cargo in 2011-12 (9.9 mt), whereas Gangavaram handled 14 mt as against 13.9 mt.