With the Paradip Port Trust (PPT) having the requisite facilities to handle fertiliser shipments, the State Government has evinced interest to meet its fertilider needs through this Major Port of the country.
While the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers (MoCF) is allocating around one million tonnes of fertilisers to the State, the entire stock is imported through the Visakhapatnam and Kakinada Ports, which not only causes delay in its supply but also incurs high cost for the MoCF.
Accordingly, considering the potentiality of the Paradip Port in terms of cost effectiveness, quicker evacuation and dispatch of fertiliser, Chief Secretary JK Mohapatra wants that the fertiliser needs of the State should be met through the ports of Odisha and not of the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
During the Kharif 2013, the MoCF has allocated 10.03 lakh tonnes of fertilisers to the State while in coming years the allocation will increase. Permission to the Odisha ports to handle the shipments of fertilisers would go a long way in facilitating better supply of fertilizers in the State, said a senior official of the Department of Agriculture.
In the meantime, PPT Chairman Sudhanshu Sekhara Mishra has written to the MoCF detailing out the capability and facilities of the port in handling fertilisers.
The PPT, which is serving a number of Sates, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, is capable to handle one million tonnes of fertilisers being allocated to Odisha, said Mishra in his letter to the MoCF Secretary.
The average rate of discharge from vessels at the Paradip Port is 6,000 tonnes per day, which is at par with the ports like Visakhapatnam, Kandla and Kakinada. The PPT has matching facilities of railway siding to dispatch the cargo at the rate of two rakes per day, which will be three rakes per day from December this year.
As for the task of storage, the PPT has a storage capacity of 30,000 MT of fertilisers of its own while a private warehouse has an equal capacity and another warehouse having a 30,000-MT capacity will be completed by December.
The handling charge of the Paradip Port is Rs 800 per tonne in case of rail transport and Rs 650 per tonne by road, which is almost the same for all ports. But if the fertilisers are dispatched from ex-Paradip vis-à-vis the ports of southern India to the upcountry destinations, the distance will come down by 471 km, which will enable the Union Government exchequer to save Rs 600 per tonne as freight subsidy.
The PPT has deep berths capable of handling vessels of 90,000-DWT size in the inner harbor, and recently, the port has floated RFQ for construction of a multipurpose berth which can handle vessels of 1,25,000 DWT, Mishra has stated in his letter.
The Paradip Port is presently having a total cargo handling capacity of 106 million tonnes per annum, which is the highest among all the Major Ports in the country, and it has other infrastructural support.
Keeping in view the capability, facilities and inherent advantages of the port, the MoCF has been requested to import at least one million tonnes of fertilisera through the Paradip Port.