Kochi port to lease out sites for foodgrain handling

The Kochi port has proposed to allot 3-4 acre sites on lease for 30 years to investors for putting up silos for handling foodgrains.

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The facility will be allotted on the basis of tender-cum-auction, which will be issued shortly.

The port has the potential to handle foodgrains in a big way, provided mechanisation of the handling and evacuation is arranged, a senior port official said, adding that such silos and pneumatic pumping systems are the most modern methods to handle foodgrains in bulk.

The decision assumes significance at a time when the port is experiencing labour shortage especially for manual handling of foodgrains. Foodgrains are currently being handled in a conventional manner using the traditional labour intensive techniques.

The official pointed out that Kerala is a food-deficit State, producing just 15% of its annual foodgrain requirement of about 3 million tonnes (mt) of rice and 4 lakh tonnes of wheat.

Additionally, the State has to get its supplies of pulses almost wholly from other states and countries, as it produces just 3,000 tonnes a year.

This implies that about 2.5 mt of rice and 4 lakh tonnes of wheat have to be procured from outside the State every year. The Food Corporation of India supplied 1.3 mt of the rice and 1.8 lakh tonnes of wheat in 2012-13, which was brought in mainly by rail.

However, compared to other ports, the manual handling of foodgrains in the port by head-load workers was costly and uncompetitive. Besides the labour issues at the railway goods sheds in Kerala also makes the demurrage payment to Indian Railways the highest in India, he added.

Source: http://transreporter.com/logisticsnews/28940/Kochi-port-to-lease-out-sites-for-foodgrain-handling/