He said that every year Rs 350 crore is spent on dredging.

“We spend a lot of money on dredging every year but even though the results are not very encouraging,” he said. Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT), under which the Haldia dock comes, has been dealing with the issue in cooperation with the Dredging Corporation of India (DCI), which is responsible for maintenance and dredging in the river Hooghly. One of DCI dredgers is already deployed at Aukland.

“Availability of dredgers is becoming a major problem now. Though, the DCI floats tenders, dredgers are not available as many private ports are coming up. Moreover, the cost of dredgers has gone up drastically in the past 10 years,” said Dube.

“According to experts the dredging work will solve a lot of problems,” he added.

Between April 2007 and February 2008, total cargo handled at Haldia port has showed a marginal increase of 1.7 per cent compared to the corresponding period of the last year, as it went from 38.58 million tonnes to 39.23 million tonnes.

Dube said that construction of two new berthsoutside the lock gates was on the cards.