Pilot shortage hits work at Kandla port

Pilot shortage hits work at Kandla port
D V MAHESHWARI

BHUJ, JULY 6: Kandla port, which handles the largest quantity of cargo, is facing a severe shortage of pilots who are supposed to steer ships through the treacherous Kandla creek. This has resulted in the the pilots being overburdened and the work at the port has been affected.

Earlier, nine pilots, sanctioned a decade ago, to handle the port's 20 millin cargo were more than adequate. However, with the expansion of the port -- commissioning of two more cargo jetties, one oil-jetty, two virtual jetties, one IFFCO jetty and the second single buoy mooring (a small floating platform in mid-sea to handle very large crude carriers) at Vadinar -- and the handling of 44 million tonne cargo, the number of pilots has been rendered hopelessly insufficient.

A few years ago, the management had asked for seven additional pilots, and the proposal was okayed by the Kandla Port Trust, but the Ministry of Surface Transport has delayed it.

According to section 31 of the Indian Major Ports Act, which governs all eleven major ports in the country, and the international maritime norms for safety of vessels, ships can be piloted into and out of the creek only by pilots trained at the port.

No ship waiting at the Outer Tuna Buoy, 20 km from Kandla port, can come up to the port-jetty or leave on its own as the ship's path in the Kandla creek is known only to the port's pilots.

``They take command of the ship from its master during its voyage from the Outer Tuna Buoy to the port-jetty in the channel marked by lighted buoys,'' sources in the Kandla Port Trust said.

Obviously, the port needs more pilots to cope with the fast increasing traffic, both at Kandla and its satellite oil port, known as the off-shore oil terminal at Vadinar.