Chennai Port Trust Jobs for Senior Personal Officer Vacancy in Chennai

Chennai Port, the third oldest port among the 12 major ports, is an emerging hub port in the East Coast of India. This gateway port for all cargo has completed 135 years of glorious service to the nations maritime trade.

Maritime trade started way back in 1639 on the sea shore Chennai. It was an open road -stead and exposed sandy coast till 1815. The initial piers were built in 1861, but the storms of 1868 and 1872 made them inoperative. So an artificial harbour was built and the operations were started in 1881 and 1872 made them inoperative. So an artificial harbour was built and the operations were started in 1881. The cargo operations were carried out on the northern pier, located on the northeastern side of Fort St. George in Chennai. In the first couple of years the port registered traffic of 3 lakh tonnes of cargo handling 600 ships.

Being an artificial harbour, the port was vulnerable to the cyclones, accretion of sand inside the basin due to underwater currents, which reduced the draft. Sir Francis Spring a visionary skillfully drew a long-term plan to charter the course of the port in a scientific manner, overcoming both man-made and natural challenges. The shifting of the entrance of the port from eastern side to the North Eastern side protected the port to a large extent from the natural vulnerabilities. By the end of 1920 the port was equipped with a dock consisting of four berths in the West Quays, one each in the East & South Quay along with the transit sheds, warehouses and a marshalling yard to facilitate the transfer of cargo from land to sea and vice versa. Additional berths were added with a berth at South Quay and another between WQ2 & WQ3 in the forties.

Indias Independence saw the port gathering development, momentum. The topography of the Port changed in 1964 when the Jawahar dock with capacity to berth 6 vessels to handle Dry Bulk cargoes such as Coal, Iron ore, Fertilizer and non hazardous liquid cargoes was carved out on the southern side.

In tune with the international maritime developments, the port developed the Outer Harbour, named Bharathi Dock for handling Petroleum in 1972 and for mechanized handling of Iron Ore in 1974. The Iron ore terminal is equipped with Mechanized ore handling plant, one of the three such facilities in the country, with a capacity of handling 8 million tonnes. The Chennai ports share of Iron ore export from India is 12%. However, at present due to Honble High Courts order handling of Ore is stopped. The dedicated facility for oil supports the expansion of the CPCLs oil refinery in the hinterland. This oil terminal is capable of handling Suezmax vessels.