Cochin Port Trust grapples with challenges as new facilities spring up in the neighbourhood vying for a share of cargo

“It is indeed a proud moment for the Cochin Port family,” said Cochin Port Trust Chairperson M. Beena in her financial year-end message, highlighting how the struggling Port Trust turned a corner registering 10% cargo throughput growth as well as more than 32% rise in operational profit over the previous year.

“We are at a positive juncture. There is a sense of buoyancy not seen over the last 10 years,” she said about cargo growth and the immediate future. At the same time, she observed that there were serious challenges ahead.

Dr. Beena’s position highlights the struggles that lie ahead for the port as new facilities spring up in its neighbourhood vying for a share of cargo that once helped Kochi thrive as a port and in turn aided in building the city’s reputation as the Queen of the Arabian Sea and Kerala’s financial hub.

The Chairperson also highlighted the present financial burden of the port, including a stiff ₹2,600-crore deficit in pension fund and an outstanding government loan of ₹500 crore. Though not mentioned in the message, a liability of around ₹100 crore a year in maintenance dredging has also slowed down growth.

Competition from other ports can be overcome by drawing new cargo. For instance, she said, the Kochi port had been able to handle a substantial quantity of rice sourced by the Food Corporation of India last year.

“Land is a big asset,” which opened the window to a possible more prosperous future, Dr. Beena added. Though the port has leveraged a substantial extent of around 3,500 acres of holdings, it still owns the prime waterfront property that opens up immense scope for investments both in activities related to core port operations and areas like hospitality and tourism.

The expansion of the refining capacity of Bharat Petroleum Corporation’s Kochi refinery, enhancing the need for movement of petrochemicals from the refinery, realisation of full capacity of the LNG terminal, and the completion of the Multi-User Liquid Terminal (including the LPG terminal at Puthuvype) will certainly augment the port’s income, she said.

The fortunes of the port and Kochi city emerge in contrasting shades. While Kochi once banked on the port for its financial and cultural growth, the city now appears to be its own master though not exactly bursting at the seams. The city’s eastern, southern and northern boundaries are showing signs of unprecedented growth, while its once prosperous and historic west appears to be fading into the shadows.

Crisis time

The Kochi Port’s is not a peculiar problem. Major ports in the country are in some level of problem, said a senior Port Trust employee. The Goa Port is in serious trouble. The most engaging financial problem for major ports is the cost of pension as they had a large number of employees in the past. The Kochi Port’s employee cost accounts for around 50% of its expenditure, he said. He is of the view that diversifying revenue stream and cargo pool will help the port in a big way.

Redevelopment of the island is the road to the future as tourism and dependence on the transshipment terminal will not save the port, said veteran trade union leader C.D. Nandakumar of the Cochin Port Trust Employees’ Organisation. He slammed the proposal to develop the port on the landlord model. “It is not going to work” for future growth, he said and pointed out that employee strength at the port had come down from 6,800 once to 1,342 now. Of them, 37 are retiring this month, leaving a big gap in the human resource pool available to the Port Trust.

He is also critical of the Port Trust’s policy of providing concessions in vessel-related charges “under the pretext of ensuring competitiveness vis-a-vis neighbouring container hubs as well as the one in Colombo. The concessions so far amount to ₹300 crore from 2013-2014 to 2018-2019, he said.

While Mr. Nandakumar dwelt at length on the business future of the port, Shivji, a long-serving newspaper agent on Willingdon Island, puts his fingers on the pulse of the island. “The island is drying up,” he says figuratively about what was once the beating heart of the city. “Numbers are telling. From nearly 300 newspaper copies being subscribed every morning a decade ago, the number has dropped to less than a hundred. If the island was full of buzz on Sundays in the past, contemporary weekends see it virtually deserted,” he said.

I.T. Joseph, veteran stage artiste and a retired port employee, painted a grim picture of the fate of some activities for which the port’s financial prosperity indirectly provided immense patronage in the past. While he blamed the port’s present condition to a combination of factors, he believes that the port once had a “resurrection” from the clutches of inefficiency.

“It can still rise over the problems,” he felt. According to him, there was a substantial number of port employees engaged in cultural activities. But the downturn in fortunes of the port has seen the prominence of Mattancherry and Thoppumpady decline in the cultural sphere too. He recalled that port staffers always took due permission from the authorities before joining cultural activities. In the 1990s, he was a member of the theatre group Harishree and had acted in plays like Aayodhanam and Samavaakyam. He continues to be on stage after retirement.

It is the bridge to a glorious past as he dreams of a bridge to a prosperous future for his successors at the port.