Visakhapatnam: The Visakhapatnam Port Trust, which did well even during Covid time last year, has set itself a target of 80 million tonnes in cargo handling for the year 2021-22.
Announcing this at a media conference here on Saturday, VPT chairman K Rammohan Rao said though the port fell short by four per cent over the previous year’s handling of 72.72 NMT, it could still meet the target of 69.84 MT in the just concluded year 2020-21 to rank second among major ports in the country. VPT target for this year is 77 MT to 80 MT. Though Goa and Paradeep ports are surging ahead, Vizag is not lagging behind in steam coal and coking coal to go up to the third position, he pointed out. VPT had also done well in exports of iron ore to China and South Korea, he revealed.
Cruise Terminal
A cruise terminal would come up at the Vizag port shortly at a cost of Rs 103 crore, he announced, and hoped that the tourism activity would boost the port revenue. More foreign tourists would be able to visit the beautiful tourist spots in the region and the passenger traffic to Chennai and Paradeep would also increase, he said.
While 2099 ships called on the port last year, the number was 2044 this year. However, the targets could be met, he stated.
Rammohan said that the VPT would shortly acquire a mobile harbour crane and two railway projects were also in the pipeline. Automated signalling system would also be introduced and the port berts were being developed with Rs 20 crore. The VPT would soon complete the beach nourishment programme with Rs 15 crore with the help of the Dredging Corporation of India Ltd, he said.
He also disclosed that during the recent Maritime India Summit, business proposals to the tune of Rs 1.10 lakh were agreed upon and MoUs were reached for Rs 74,000 crore work.
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