Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee is learnt to have laid a condition that the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) should take a depth guarantee from Dredging Corporation of India (DCI) before it seeks the second tranche of dredging subsidy.

The shipping ministry could not release the dredging subsidy of 2009-2010 to KoPT until March 22 since the finance ministry blocked the entire subsidy amount of Rs 474 crore. With the minister of shipping Mukul Roy finally intervening into the matter, the finance ministry made a part release of Rs 267 crore with a warning that such dredging subsidies wouldn?t continue if the shipping lanes? draught of Haldia and Kolkata ports, under KoPT, didn?t increase.

Roy told Fe that he, along with the acting chairman and deputy chairman of KoPT had a meeting with Mukherjee last week and claimed that the finance minister had agreed to release the balance subsidy for 2009-2010.

?All issues relating to dredging subsidy is clear now and there are no more hassles on matters of funding KoPT?s dredging,? Roy said.

He said Mukherjee would hold a meeting with a large section of port workers at Haldia on April 10 and clear the air about KoPT?s future. He is likely to declare the allocation for the long pending river regulatory scheme (RRS) on that day in the presence of railway minister Mamata Banerjee, Roy added.

Officials said Mukherjee has made it clear that DCI has to increase draught, if it has to undertake KoPT?s dredging activity. In fact, the dredging subsidy released by the government actually means business for DCI and if dredging of KoPT channels are stopped, the government owned company would lose revenue. DCI has been dredging Kolkata and Haldia ports? channels for over 20 years now at an annual average cost of Rs 420 crore per annum. The new five-year contract signed between DCI and KoPT on May 2009 involves an annual cost of Rs 490 crore but there has been no improvement in draught conditions.

A section of marine engineers argue that if the newly found Eden channel would have been opened, the government could have saved around Rs 450 crore a year. But since the lowest bid was 33% more against the estimated contract amount of Rs 8.40 crore, the tender committee cancelled the bid. Ramakant Burman, convenor of the Haldia Dock Bachao Committee, alleged that the tender committee was more eager to push through the dredging of Auckland Channel, currently the governing bar of Haldia port.