Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

VPT to have an investment of Rs. 3,000 cr. in five years

VISAKHAPATNAM: The Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT), the only Indian port to have three international accreditations – ISO 14001: 1996 (for environment management system), ISO 9001:2000 (quality management) and OHSAS: 18001 (occupational health and safety assessment), will have Rs.3,000 crore investment in the next five years for development including Rs.1,600 crores from private participation.

VPT Deputy Chairman M.S. Rao, announcing this at the conference on EXIM excellence – 2007 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) – Andhra Pradesh chapter in the city on Friday, added that VPT, the premier port of the country for the last seven years, had achieved 16 per cent growth (compared to the same period last year) during 2007-08 till date by handling 29 million tonnes of cargo against 56.4 mt in 2006-07.

Due to the measures taken to improve efficiency and productivity, the productivity for non-mechansied cargo had improved by seven per cent in 2006-07 compared to 2005-06. Similarly, the average turn around time of the vessels had come down to 3.65 days in 2006-07 as against 3.80 days in 2005-06. “During 2007-08 we have achieved many land marks and national records in cargo traffic and cargo handling,” he said.

Mr. Rao said VPT hoped to touch 80 mt traffic by 2012 which called for enhancement of the port capacity to 100 million tonnes from the present 58 million tonnes. Deepening of the inner harbour to cater to panamax vessels of 14 metres draft had been identified as one the thrust areas and was being taken up in three phases. The phase-I was nearing completion for 11 metres draft.

Construction of three new berths including two on BOT basis, revamping two oil berths to cater 12.5 m draft vessels, mechanised loading facilities for alumina and fertilisers and installation of harbour mobile cranes were some of the projects taken up in the inner harbour.

In the outer harbour, there were plans to upgrade it to handle 2 lakh DWT iron ore vessels, night navigation to Suez Max tankers and integrated mechanised handling facilities for coking and steam coals. As the container traffic in South East Asian region was expected to grow by 18 per cent, the VPT had plans to extend the present container terminal once the container volume picked up. Besides, it had also taken up development of a new railway interchange yard near Mindi as the cargo traffic at the port was predominantly rail borne, he said.

Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) Director (Commercial) C.G. Patil who read the speech copy of VSP CMD P.K. Bishnoi, said VSP had plans to expand its capacity to 6.3 million tonnes in the first phase by 2008-09 with Rs.8,692 crore investment. During 2006-07, the company registered the highest sales turnover of Rs.9,131 crore with a growth of eight per cent over 2005-06. While it exported products worth Rs.424 crores in 2006-07, in 2007-08 there were plans to export metal worth Rs.500 crores, he said. CII-AP Chairman Pradeep Dhobale, CII Vizag zone Chairman Varma Vegesna, CII-AP Vice-Chairman and Utpal Sengupta participated.

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