The Hindu Business Line : Higher fertiliser, wheat imports cause problems at Vizag

The spurt in the throughput of imported fertilisers (additional three lakh tonnes so far this year vis-à-vis the same period last year) and wheat (3.7 lakh tonnes this year compared to nil last year) at Visakhapatnam port recently caused problems not only to the port authorities but also to others, such as the Railways, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).

Wheat and fertilisers, low freighted but high priority items, having edged other items out, the rake loading of imported coal both for SAIL and NTPC dropped, causing concern to the state-owned steel and thermal power generating giants, more so because the port's own railway was found wanting in performance.

Both SAIL and NTPC were mulling to use Paradip port in preference to Visakhapatnam port to receive the imported coal to tide over the crisis. SAIL imports coking coal through Visakhapatnam port to meet 80 per cent requirement of its Bhilai plant while NPTC for its Vindhyachal and Rihand plants.

But the idea of using Paradip proved difficult to implement, for several reasons.

Reasons cited

First, neither SAIL nor NTPC had enough imported coal of the required varieties lying accumulated at Paradip.

The ships bringing coal from abroad, mostly foreign flag carriers, could not be diverted at will from one port to another.

The shipping fixtures are generally firmed up at a given freight well in advance.

There were other problems. SAIL, it was estimated, would be required to pay an additional transportation cost, in excess of Rs 5 lakh per rake, for carrying coal from Paradip to Bhilai (750 km) vis-à-vis Visakhapatnam port to Bhilai (550 km). The same would be true about NTPC which uses the coal imported through Visakhapatnam in its Vindhyachal and Rihand plants.

Also for the Railways, transporting coal from Paradip to Bhilai vis-à-vis Visakhapatnam to Bhilai, despite higher freight earning, would not have been without its problem.

The turnaround time of the rake would have been double.

There would have been haulage of the empty rakes over longer distance, not a very encouraging proposition for the Railways.

The Railways sources attributed the crisis to "inept handling by Visakhapatman port authorities".

The port authorities, when contacted, conceded there were problems which, they emphasised, had since been sorted out.

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