Safe Harbour

Calcutta, Feb. 20: A new dock system at Sagar seems closer to reality with the Japan International Co-operation Agency (Jica) agreeing to carry out a pre-feasibility study to establish the economic viability of the Rs 4,000-crore project.

Consulting Engineering Services (CES) will carry out the study and submit the report to the Japanese agency in a month. Jica will take the final call on the detail project report (DPR), which may take about 15 months to complete after it gets the CES input.

Calcutta Port Trust (CPT) chairman A. K. Chanda said he was hopeful that Jica would take up the study for the project, touted as the panacea for saving the port in the long run.

There are two projects on Jica?s table from Bengal ? the Raichowk-Kukrahati bridge near Haldia and the port project at Sagar. There are a number of proposals from other states too. It is more likely that Jica will take up only one project from Bengal this year. The port and Union ministry of shipping are pushing for the Sagar project.

Chanda said a DPR by the Japanese agency would be useful for selling the project to private investors who were currently thronging the west coast ports. ?They bring in specialists from 16-17 disciplines and do a thorough study on marine, environment, hydrology, traffic, rail-road connectivity and evacuation. Thus it becomes a valuable document establishing long-term economic viability of a project,? he added.

The port is planning the third dock system at Sagar, 145 kms down south of Calcutta, to take the advantage of deeper draft that will allow bigger vessels to call in. The port is considering setting up 10 berths and two jetties there. Many of these could be developed by private majors like P&, Port of Singapore Authority and Hutchison.

The Sagar port will have a draft of 12.5 metres, which can be compared with JNPT of Mumbai that accounts for most of India?s container handling. In comparison, the Haldia Dock Complex and Calcutta Dock System have drafts of 8.5 metres and 7 metres respectively. The port spends more than Rs 350 crore every year to maintain the draft. As a result, bigger vessels unload part of the cargo at Paradip and then visit CPT. This two-port operation increases cost of business to a large extent.

If Sagar comes up, the shipping turnaround time will be reduced as a ship need not sail through a long meandering 232-km channel of river Hooghly. Chanda said ships with 70,000 tonnes parcel load or 4,000 containers could visit Sagar compared with 30,000 tonnes and 1,000 containers on a like-to-like basis, leading to a reduction in cost benefit to the industry.

Moreover, it will have access to all the state-of-the-art machines and technologies, leading to lower cost of operation. The port will then pass on the benefit to users.