Kolkata, April 18 (FN Representative) Despite business bottlenecks owing to Covid-19, the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port (SMP), formerly known as Kolkata Port Trust, has made a net profit of Rs 120 crore in 2021-22, compared to Rs 104 crore in 2020-21, SMP chairman Vinit Kumar said on Monday while elaborating the modernisation plan of Rs 1700 crore for the country’s only major riverine port. Among the modernisation plans, the SMP has tied up with an IT firm in Chennai for introducing the night navigation system of about 130 kms sea-river route between Sagar to Kolkata port, Kumar told a media conference Due to poor visibility during the dark the SMP can not function 24 hours on the route. SMP has handled 58.175 million tonnes (mt) of cargo during 2021-22, compared to 61.368 mt in 20-21, a decreased 5.20 per cent, which attributed to poor response from the importers due to increase in price of coal, fertilizers as well as freight rates of the vessels.
In addition to this, Container shipping rates continued to be highly volatile. Similarly Haldia Dock Complex of the SMP in Medinipur also reported a 5.70 per cent decrease of cargo handling for 2021-22 as it handled 42.877 mt in the last fiscal than 45.467 mt in 20-21. The Kidderpore Dock System (KDS) handled 15.30 mt of cargo in 21022, while it handled 15.9 mt during 20-21, also a decrease of 3.8 per cent. Kumar said the investment of Rs 1700 crore was to be utilised for augmenting capacity, modernising infrastructure, monetisation of assets and digitisation of operations, modernisation and creating infrastructure over the next two years. The projects, which are under the National Gati Shakti plan will help create modern infrastructure and competitive logistics supply chain.Projects worth Rs 700 crore have already been completed in the last two years and Rs 1,700 crore worth projects are under various stages of implementation. Among others in the plan to make Kolkata a leading cruising centre of the eastern region and for this, a Rs 66 crore project was taken to develop three-four cruise terminals along with riverfront beautification and commercial development on a 31-acre plot at Kidderpore. The port was also focusing on integrated development and seamless connectivity for the transit of cargo to the northeast via Indo-Bangla protocol route, Kumar said. ” Ongoing projects are undertaken and opportunities through connectivity of SMP were discussed.