The Hindu : Chennai port handles 30 million tonnes of cargo in 10 days

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 14, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Chennai port handles 30 million tonnes of cargo in 10 days

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, FEB. 13. Nearly 30 million tonnes of cargo was handled by the Chennai port in the first 10 months of the current financial year, which is 5.56 per cent more than the traffic it registered in the corresponding period of 2002-03.

In January alone, the cargo handling was around 31.23 lakh million tonnes, 21.71 per cent increase over the 25.65 lakh million tonnes in January 2003, the Chennai Port Trust said in a release.

Its cargo handling had been on the decline from 41.22 million tonnes in 2000-01 to 36.11 and 33.68 million tonnes in the next two financial years.

While attributing the drop to the transfer of about nine million tonnes of thermal coal to the Ennore port over the years, the Chennai port had turned into focus on attracting other (clean) cargo, including passenger cars and foodgrains.

The release said the container handling in the first 10 months of 2003-04 went up by 25.04 per cent over the corresponding period last year. The container traffic was around 4.39 lakh TEUs (twenty feet equivalent units) as against 3.51 lakh TEUs.

The coal and iron ore handling, the former in terms of wagon handled by its Railway division, at the port also increased by 27.28 and 0.47 per cent in January over the performance in the corresponding month of 2003.

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