The exit of the Nano project from Singur in West Bengal has also sealed the fate of the Haldia port.
The country?s fourth largest port will be classified as a minor port that will handle only barges, according to a plan cleared by the shipping ministry. Ministry officials, who visited the port last month, have given the port authorities the go-ahead to create the infrastructure for barges.
This means that Haldia will now use barges or cargo vessels with tonnages of only up to 10,000 DWT, about a fifth of the size of the standard cargo ships that berth in the large ports.
The Haldia port was supposed to be the port of choice for the Tatas to export their vehicles to the East Asain markets. The other attraction of Haldia was the proposed Petroleum, Chemicals & Petrochemical Investment Region to come up in its hinterland at Nayachar. But that too seems unlikely.
The downgrade for Haldia will mean it will not be a regulated by the Tariff Authority for Major Ports (TAMP). Haldia, along with the Kolkata port, was classified as Category A, along with Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT , Chennai and Vizag.
Though Amal Dutta, general manager, administration, Haldia Dock Complex, denied any meeting with the ministry officials on Haldia?s conversion into a barge port, the agenda of the meeting, available with FE, confirms that the meeting was indeed on creating barge infrastructure at Haldia. The shipping ministry was represented by Vijay Chibber, additional secretary, and and RK Srivastava, joint secretary.
Till now, bulk cargo in Haldia was coming in Handymax vessels, which are generally of 50,000 dead weight tonne (DWT) and even bigger ships up to 100,000 DWT were calling at the port. These cargo ships will now have to await the development of the Dhamra port in Orissa being built by the Tatas and L&T.
In 2008-09, Haldia Docks handled 41.5 million tonne cargoes against 43.5 mt in 2007-08. It reported a net profit of Rs 430 crore in 2007-08. The port has been battling silt and low draught conditions for quite sometime?and ministry officials have cited high maintenance costs as a reason for the decision to convert Haldia into a minor port.
While the Haldia Dock Officer?s Forum claim the ministry has been considering this conversion for long, Dutta said there was a problem at Haldia. He said ships are forced to enter the port with a reduced parcel size. Ships with bulk cargo, meant for Haldia?s hinterland, have to offload 60% of their cargo at Vizag or Paradeep.