By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, JULY 29, 2014 : THE Ministry of Shipping is taking various measures to resolve the long standing dispute relating to Kanika sands transhipment zone to the satisfaction of all the concerned parties, i.e the Kolkata Port Trust, Paradip Port, Odisha Government and others. Directives to this effect are being issued upon instructions by the Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Mr Nitin Gadkari, for operationalising the Kanika sands transhipment zone.

With this, round the year Transloading and Transhipment operations for handling much needed coal, iron ore and other bulk commodities, is set to begin at this place. Kolkata, Haldia & Paradip ports will benefit immediately as these ports will now have the capability to handle the large sized Panamax & Capesize vessels round the year without spending huge amounts on dredging.

The resolution of the issue will lead to localisation of logistics facilities empowering local communities. More importantly, it will help to tide over current infrastructure shortcomings. Port congestion and subsequent massive demurrage costs will come down. The supply of imported coal to NTPC's Farakaa power plant will help to reduce power shortage. It will benefit NTPC and other prospective users of the supply chain, as bigger vessels can come nearer to these ports, thereby avoiding multiple handling of cargo. All such cost saving will ultimately be passed on to the end user.

Such Transhipment zones can reduce the cost of imported or exported goods resulting in significant savings to the industry and the exchequer. With the cost being reduced, more cargo will be diverted to these ports, thus bringing additional revenue to the exchequer.

Shallow water ports' capacity can be enhanced to handle larger vessels thereby reducing current shortage of deep draft ports. This will provide interim relief while the major port projects are developed to full capacity. Transhipment infrastructure will act as extension to major ports thereby enhancing port capacities and revenues without incurring huge amounts of capital expenditure.

All this can be achieved with a lead time of 8-10 months, which is short and highly economical and minimizing the continuous dredging efforts to maintain the channel.

Transhipment when connected with Inland water transport has the potential to empower local communities to fully use our national waterways with the proposed development Ganges around the year navigation. This will link very large ocean going vessels to various Inland waterways, starting with National Waterway One which is to be the nation's premier waterway from Halidia to Allahabad.

The Supreme Court has earlier endorsed the effort made by the ministry to resolve the issue amicably.