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Vinod Mathew

AHMEDABAD, April 2

THE Kandla port may have witnessed a revival in fortunes barely a week after expressing fears of having its operations derailed by the war in Iraq.

In fact, the Kandla port authorities are looking forward to becoming a major cog in the wheel during the `food-for-oil' programme as much of the wheat exports to Iraq, even otherwise, is routed through Kandla.

Just as this holds true in the case of the six lakh tonnes of wheat that was to be exported to Iraq this year, the Kandla port is looking forward to increased operations on this front as a part of the food-for-oil programme once it gets implemented and India too gets on the bandwagon. While that would come in the way of additional activity, the current level of operations are back to normal at Kandla.

While the first week of the war saw one vessel that set sail from Kandla almost a fortnight ago to UmmQasar in Iraq getting diverted to Dubai, the second week of the war has not claimed any such casualties, even though many vessels from Kandla, carrying foodgrains, are headed for the West Asia.

All the 10 solid cargo berths at Kandla are full with ships that are destined to carry cargo to Sharjah, Muscat, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nigeria, South Africa and Bangladesh. A majority of the cargo is either wheat or rice while soyabean extract, machinery and containerised freight comprise the rest.

Just as almost all the 10 solid cargo berths have vessels that are loading vessels with cargo for exports, three out of the six liquid cargo berths are handling imported commodities such as LPG, furnace oil and palmolein.

Talking to Business Line, Mr R.K. Ravanakar, Traffic Manager at Kandla, said the Iraq war was unlikely to impact the port operations at Kandla as the sea routes were fairly unaffected till date.

``The cargo mix at Kandla ensures that it will not be hit too much by the ongoing war. At the same time, there is no wishing away the war premium that is currently being charged by various ports in the Gulf region.''

Earlier, during the first few days of the Iraq war, some half a dozen fully loaded ships at Kandla were held up due to snarl-ups in documentation procedures. Even at that time, the nearby port at Mundra had claimed that its operations were unaffected.

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