PPT chairman SK Mohapatra told reporters that the port has handled a record traffic of 13.30 million tonnes surpassing the previous record of 11.38 million tonnes handled in 1996-97. The growth rate is about 15 per cent over the previous years and about 18 per cent over the target for the year.

The port handled 6.06 million tonnes of thermal coal, 1.7 million tonnes of petroleum products, 1.4 million tonnes of iron ore, 1.4 million tonnes of coking coal and about 2 million tonnes of other cargo during the year.

However, the port failed to meet the targets in fertiliser and coking coal handling due to a dearth of vessels, he explained.

The port handled a record number of vessels during the year by facilitating the entry of 672 ships and clearing 676ships during the year as against 603 and 592 ships, respectively, in the previous year. The port railways handled 3,83,967 wagons during the year as against 3,29,502 wagons the previous year.

The most significant achievement of the port is that it did not lose a single man day during the year. It was able to reduce the ship waiting period to as low as 1.6 days on an average, a feat only Mangalore in the west coast could match.

The chairman said the port is gearing up to expand its infrastructure facilities to meet demand of the hinterland. Although the demand has been projected to be about 34 million tonnes, the port will be able to handle about 42 million tonnes of cargo by the end of 2002.

Three berths for general cargo, one exclusive jetty for petroleum, oil and lubricants besides the two coal berths for the ADB project will be added to the existing eight berths with a total investment of Rs 908 crore during the Ninth Five-year Plan.

The port is working on installing night navigation facilities.The Rs 1.8-crore project will be completed in six months' time and will extend the working hours to 24 from 11 hours now leading to a great increase in ship-handling.

Mohapatra said the master plan of the port has been updated by Indian Port Association and made final. The post-project traffic movement has been pegged at 64 million tonnes by 2007 and 82 million tonnes by 2012. The port's capacity can be expanded to meet the project demand by incresing the number of berths to 36 which can be done within the same breakwater and infrastructure, he added.

Mohapatra said that the coming up of Dhamra port will not pose a challenge to Paradip. He said there is enough scope for new ports to come up on the Orissa coast.

Given the economic activities the state promises, these ports will have enough cargo to move in the coming years, he added.