Mr P Tamilvanan, NMPT’s Chairman, said that the beginning of current financial year shows encouraging trend for the growth of container traffic at the port. Tamilvanan said that the port is aiming to handle 60,000 TEU of containers during the current financial year. The port handled 40,158 TEU of containers during 2010-11. Of the total handling of 10,076 TEU at the port, nearly 13.15 percent of the cargo was contributed by the mainline vessels calling at the port during the period. Four mainline container vessels from East and West Africa called at New Mangalore till June 14, contributing more than 1,300 TEU to the total container traffic of the port. The port handled one mainline container vessel in April and two in May. The fourth mainline container vessel of the current financial year – m.v. Konard Schulte – brought 399 TEUs of raw cashew cargo from Port of Contonou in Benin of West Africa. Tamilvanan said that a few more mainline vessels are expected to call at NMPT in the coming days. S Gopalakrishna, Traffic Manager of NMPT, said that the advantage of mainline vessel directly calling at the port is that it brings down
the transit time and leads to lesser handling cost for importers. It will take only 25 days between Mangalore and West Africa whereas vessels via Colombo will take 40 days, he added.
New Mangalore Port handled 10,076 TEU of containers in the first 75 days of current financial year
