The Hindu Business Line : Kolkata port seeks help as Hooghly depth drops

Kolkata, Oct. 14 The Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) has sought urgent assistance from the Ministry of Shipping to overcome the crisis thrown up by the sudden drop in the navigable depth of the Hooghly River at Auckland, posing a threat to Haldia dock of the port.

The river survey on Wednesday revealed that the depth had dropped to 3.7 metres from 4.1 metres a month ago. Ideally, the depth should be 5.5 metres.

As a result, KoPT has been forced to announce at unscheduled draft cut of 0.3 metres, with the peak draft now declining to 6.9 metres from the earlier 7.2 metres. The ships calling at Haldia, therefore, will be required to have a lower parcel load. “Some of the inbound ships, unaware of the unscheduled draft cut and already in the Sandheads carrying higher load, may have to be diverted to other ports,” Mr A. Majumdar, the acting Chairman of KoPT, told news persons here on Wednesday. “However, the sailing out of loaded vessels will not be affected”.

Mr Majumdar emphasised that the Haldia dock was not closed but conceded that the problem was critical. Currently, there are 40 ships waiting at Sandheads, 32 of them Haldia-bound.

The assistance sought included international expertise (as was done in 1982) as well as deployment of more dredgers.

The Ministry, as Mr Majumdar pointed out, would make available Dredge XV, the Dredging Corporation of India’s dredger now deployed in Goa.

At present, six of the DCI’s dredgers (not all of them in the best of condition) are active at Auckland against the promised seven and dredging has not ensured the contractual depth of 5.5 metres. When asked if deployment of more dredgers would help achieve the desired depth, a spokesman for KoPT expressed doubt. Too many dredgers over a width of 345 metres and a length of four to five km would not be of much help, he observed.

The crisis, as Capt A. Bagchi, Director, Marine, KoPT, explained, had been brewing for the past two to three years due to adverse morphological changes in the river. As a result, the tail of the Nayachara Island in the middle of the river got extended, encroaching the Auckland channel. “It is a fight against Nature as 35 to 40 million cubic metres of silt from upstream are getting deposited in the estuary every year,” he observed.

Mr B. Chowdhury, Chief Hydraulic Engineer, KoPT, said that there was a move to make the alternative Eden Channel navigable as early as possible, if necessary, even through some drastic measures. The views of the Tariff Advisory Committee of the Shipping Ministry had been obtained in this regard, he added.

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