The Hindu Business Line : Disturbed conditions due to police firing

THE Jajpur firing in Orissa is set to take a toll on rail and road movement of iron ore into Paradip port. There has been a drop in the volumes of the ore arriving in the port from the mines located in and around Jajpur area as a sequel to the disturbed situation there.

It might be noted that the killing of a dozen tribals in police firing in Jajpur area on December 3 has plunged the State into political and other crises.

Inquiries with East Coast Railway's headquarters in Bhubaneswar reveal that the average daily loading of iron rakes in the Jajpur area has dropped to two from the normal five as the road bridging (i.e., the movement of trucks loaded with iron ore from the pitheads to the nearest railheads) in many places has remained suspended.

As a result of limited loading of trucks and consequently, rakes, lower volumes of rail-borne iron ore traffic is moving into the port.

Paradip Port Trust (PPT) sources indicates that the arrival of fewer rakes than earlier will affect backloading (i.e., loading for movement from the port to different inland destinations) of coal, both coking and no-coking varieties.

This is because the rakes that arrive at the port with iron ore are also used for backloading of imported coal for evacuation out of the port. As a result, there will be accumulation of coal stock within the dock premises.

The road transportation of ore into the port for exports too stands to be hit. On an average, 2,000 trucks carrying a total of an estimated 20,000 tonnes of ore move into the port every day. It is feared that fewer trucks will now arrive at the port.

However, both EC Railway and PPT hope that the situation will come back to normal soon and have no major impact on the overall traffic throughput for the current fiscal as a whole.

It might be noted that iron ore (exports) and coal (imports) are two major items of traffic handled by the port.

In 2004-05, the port handled more than nine million tonnes (mt) of iron ore, posting a growth of about 52 per cent over 2003-04, and 3.26 mt of coking coal, a growth of about 46 per cent.

The current fiscal, it is estimated, will end up with a throughput of 11 mt of iron ore exports and about four mt of coking coal imports. Till December, the figures were 7.38 mt and three mt respectively.