HYDERABAD: Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT), one of India’s leading state-owned ports that lost significant business to neighbouring privately-owned Gangavaram Port for years, is gearing up to regain business through improving efficiencies, and has termed the coming fiscal as a ‘turnaround year’.
One of VPT’s largest customer, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam (RINL) that runs Vizag Steel Plant, had years ago shifted to Gangavaram Port si tuated next door to save on logistics costs for import of raw materials and export of finished products. VPT has now firmed up plans for capacity augmentation and modernisation involving at least Rs 3,000 crore, increasing the cargo handling capacity by a third, and addressing bottlenecks related to last-mile road and rail connectivi ty to the port.
The port’s deputy chairman PL Haranadh told ET that the port has already spent around Rs 2,500 crore over the last 3-4 years that helped augmenting capacity to 93 million tonnes from 60 million tonnes, apart from modernising cargo handling facilities.
