The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Tuticorin News : Making waves with its progress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jul 15, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Tuticorin

Making waves with its progress

Staff Reporter

TUTICORIN: The Tuticorin Port celebrated its 31st anniversary as a major port recently. It was on July 11, 1974 that the Government of India declared it the 10th major port in the country.

The port, which started with two berths in 1975, now has eight alongside berths, two shallow water berths, one oil jetty and two coal jetties for handling cargo. In the cargo front, the port handled 158.11 lakh tonnes of cargo last fiscal. This was a quantum jump from a mere 13.65 lakh tonnes handled in 1975-76. The port handled 3,07,310 lakh TEUs (Twentyfoot Equivalent Units) in the last financial year vis-à-vis 124 TEUs handled during 1979-`80. This phenomenal growth in container traffic enabled the port to fetch an all-time high net profit of Rs 69.19 crores last fiscal.

Commemorating the port's 31st `birthday,' N.K. Raghupathy, Chairman of the Tuticorin Port Trust, told mediapersons that the port had chalked an expansion plan at an estimated cost of Rs.249.75 crores during its 32nd year (2005-`06). The plan includes the construction of a new berth, Berth 9, at a cost of Rs.36 crores, dredging in front of Berth 9 at Rs.46 crores, the conversion of Berth 8 into a container berth at a project outlay of Rs.150 crores and strengthening and widening of port roads at a cost of Rs.17.75 crores, he said.

Preparatory work on the dredging of the dock basin and entrance channel to cater to 12.8 m draught vessels would also be done this fiscal.

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