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Haldia Dock Complex -- No smooth sailing to autonomy

Santanu Sanyal

THE issue of delinking the Haldia dock complex (HDC) from the Calcutta Port Trust (CPT) and reconstituting it into a separate major port has surfaced again, after 1975-1976.

Nearly quarter of a century ago, the Centre constituted a two-member committee to examine the scope of separating HDC from the CPT. The committee felt that HDC, the efficient and revenue-earning arm of the CPT, should not continue to subsidise the ineffi ciency of the other arm, the Calcutta dock system (CDS). HDC would never grow unless it was allowed to retain its own surpluses for plough back. But the views of the committee did not find favour with politicians and the trade unions.

Those were the days when such concepts as liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation were unknown to the policy-makers and earning profits was not on the priority list of government organisations. The move to delink HDC, therefore, did not make any headway.

The issue came up for review again in 1993, when the Shipping Ministry constituted another committee under Mr S. Gopalan, then development adviser (ports) to the Ministry.

There were other members like Managing Director of the Indian Ports Association and the Deputy Chairmen of both CDS and HDC. This time also the committee favoured delegation of autonomy to HDC, subject to certain conditions. Again, the stiffest oppositio n came from within. Those employed in CDS feared that the delinking of HDC would sound a death-knell for them as there was no way CDS could fend for itself.

Ever since the Ministry of Surface Transport (MoST) identified HDC, along with two other ports -- the JNPT and Ennore -- for corporatisation about a year ago, the prospect of the dock emerging as a separate major port has brightened. But corporatisation of HDC is not going to be smooth. After all, HDC is different from the JNPT and Ennore. As the MoST secretary indicated, a special model has to be worked out for HDC in view of its linkages with CDS.

Till such time the model has been worked out, the Government, it appears, is keen to impart greater autonomy in the functioning of HDC. The MoST guidelines issued recently are understood to have suggested that operations related to estuary dredging, rive r survey including the hydraulic department should be shifted from Calcutta to Haldia.

Also, there should be a separate ship calling committee for Haldia similar to the one at Calcutta so that the Haldia dock authorities could monitor the movement of vessels without depending on Calcutta. The pilot service should also be bifurcated and the accounting procedure made more transparent.

But no effort to achieve real autonomy will succeed unless adequate financial autonomy is granted to HDC authorities. And the kind of financial autonomy the HDC authorities are looking forward to is unlikely to materialise till the MoST forces Indian Oil Corporation to deposit the wharfage charges for the Haldia oil jetties at the HDC office at Haldia itself.

Now, the wharfage for Haldia dock's oil jetties is collected at the CPT's head office in Calcutta and the money, according to the HDC authorities, never gets transferred to Haldia. This has always been a sore point with the HDC authorities, especially be cause the amount is not small -- over Rs 90 crore annually, at the rate of about Rs 85 per tonne of wharfage on an average on a total throughput of more than 10 million tonnes of crude and POL products per annum.

But, then, the arrangement of collection of the wharfage of Haldia oil jetties at the CPT's headquarter in Calcutta is a legacy of the past. The first oil jetty at Haldia was commissioned in 1968 when there was no such thing as HDC. The jetty was commiss ioned to meet the requirement of the Haldia refinery of Indian Oil Corporation. In 1977, HDC came into being, but the system of collection of the wharfage for the oil jetty continued at the CPT's head office. In 1991, the second oil jetty was commissione d at Haldia and the third one a few months ago this year. But the old system of wharfage collection still persists.

Every year, HDC is required to spend hundreds of crores of rupees to meet the cost of dredging of the Hooghly river near the dock. However, the cost is reimbursed in full by way of dredging subsidy provided by the Union Government. Since the subsidy amou nt is deposited at the CPT's coffers in the head office, HDC authorities rarely get back the amount in full, according to complaints.

The recent order by MoST suggests that the dredging subsidy will be paid to HDC directly. But how it will be done remains to be seen. It is felt that CDS, in all likelihood, will raise objection to it.

The CPT Chairman was earlier HDC Deputy Chairman for more than five years. He is, therefore, fully aware of the problems facing HDC. An earlier CPT Chairman also had served at Haldia for a long time. But, then, a CPT Chairman apparently is helpless. At C DS, he has to run the show in a more than 125-year-old establishment facing a difficult river, huge surplus workforce, obsolete equipment and archaic practices, and capping it all, limited cargo throughput insufficient to support such a huge, inefficient set-up.