Challenging days ahead for Chittagong port
Though cargo
pressure is increasing, but the infrastructure on the whole is not being developed
as yet
The number of containers handled at Chittagong port is growing as much as by 1522 per cent annually, but the port is running its operations with the same number of jetties it had 10 years back. Against the backdrop of growing cargo handling, the ports operational capacity hasnt increased. Moreover, the New Mooring Container Terminals (NCTs) built in 2007 cannot run in full swing due to lack of apparatus. While on the one hand there is fast growth on both export and import, on the other hand, both importers and exporters are incurring huge losses for the poor infrastructure.
The two contrasting scenarios cannot go together, and it is right now to address the shortfalls before the port reaches the brink of a disaster. Even though, our importers and exporters have repeatedly asked the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) for a new jetty and yards several times, but the port has not paid any heed.
According to a study conducted by HPC Hamburg Port Consulting GmbH, a German company, the port authority has designed a 30-year master plan for Chittagong port which was unveiled in 2015. It forecast that if the growth remained constant till 2016, the present structure of goods loading and unloading would not be possible to manage at Chittagong port. If the CPA runs the NCT in full swing by adding the required equipment, CPA can tackle the pressure of container handling at the most until 2017. But from 2018, the CPA will have to deal with more goods than it can with its current capacity. So, this firm has suggested the construction of three key terminals before 2019.
But many previous studies, researches and investigative reports with facts and forecasting was clearly neglected by the port authorities. In fact, in the last decade the port users also stressed on increasing capacity, but the CPA chairman reportedly paid more attention to unnecessary issues like buying reconditioned vessels for carrying goods, constructing water-treatment plants, buying ambulance ships, and building an auditorium.
However, though cargo pressure is increasing, but the infrastructure on the whole is not being developed as yet. We dont know how much is possible to achieve even if initiatives are taken right from now on, but challenging days are ahead for the countrys principal port for handling the countrys export-import trade.
Even though we are rather reluctant, but its time for the countrys highest governing authority to intervene into the Chittagong ports infrastructure development.
