Hobbled by a low river draught, the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Kolkata (SMPK) recorded a sharp decline in cargo volume in the first nine month of FY25, led by dwindling coal movement at Haldia and Calcutta.

Compared with a 2.68 per cent growth by 12 government-run major ports, SMPK posted a 12 per cent decline in cargo volume between April-December over the same period last year.

The major ports on the east coast such as Visakhapatnam and Paradip posted a modest growth in overall cargo movement, 0.75 per cent and 3.78 per cent, respectively. They also showed marginal growth in coal handling.

In contrast, coal handling dipped by 37 per cent in SMPK.

Rathendra Raman, chairman of the SMPK, blamed the fall in thermal coal imports used by power plants for the port’s poor performance.

“Due to change in the government policy, which is promoting use of domestic coal rather than imports, we saw a decline. However, all other three cargo baskets — liquid, container and break bulk — recorded growth but it was not enough to make up for the fall in bulk cargo,” Raman explained.

India’s import of coking coal, used by blast furnace led steel mills, increased by 8 per cent in CY24, according to market intelligence firm BigMint, indicating many of the private ports are wooing away customers from their public sector counterpart. Thermal coal import was up too, by 3 per cent between April- October, government data showed.

According to a section of users, Haldia is being used more as a backup option by importers, along with Paradip and Dhamra for bulk cargo. “Haldia/Calcutta has an excellent rail network which allows quick evacuation of material by rakes. In a process industry, users always want to have multiple backup options to get the raw material at the factory gate,” said a user.

On an average, Haldia can handle 18,000 tonnes of cargo per ship, even though individual ships can carry up to 32,000 tonnes in its hull, with full tidal support. SMPK officials said the port is offering incentives to trade to neutralise the additional costs that importers incur due to two port (Paradip/ Dhamra and Haldia/Calcutta) operations.

Simultaneously, it is in the process of widespread mechanisation of cargo operations at berths, both at Haldia and Calcutta, to improve efficiency in handling which would mean a faster turnaround time and lower pre-berthing detention of ships. In turn, the user industry would have to pay less demurrage, bringing down the logistics cost.

The port, which is the fulcrum of economic activities in Bengal, is also hoping to achieve an incremental increase in river draught by 0.5 metre over the next five years by dredging.

If achieved and maintained, the additional clearance between river bed and the bottom of a ship would allow additional parcel load of 5,000-7,000 tonnes in each voyage to Haldia, reducing costs.

Following maintenance dredging, which costs the port about ₹400 crore annually, the riverine channel leading to Haldia from Bay of Bengal holds 8.5 metre draught on average during high tide.