Kolkata Port Trust Jobs for Recruitment For Engineer Post in Kolkata

Commissioned in 1870, the journey of the first major as well as the only riverine port of the country continues through the tortuous process of ebb and tide, expectancy and challenges, intricately woven with the varying draft/siltation of the river Hooghly which cradles it, as it continues to adapt and re-engineer itself in newer locales and diversifying functions.

Kolkata Port, which would be celebrating its 145th birthday shortly, was once the premier port of the country but since 1966-67 faced a steady decline in its fortunes. However, due to its innate nature of innovation and adaptability and also fated in terms of a geo-historical compulsion to gravitate southwards to harness its deep drafted facilities and its huge potential in respect of movement of cargo through Inland Water Transport (IWT) mode, there had been a steady flourish in cargo and vessel handling and in different spheres of Port activity from 2004-05 to 2007-08 with the port being positioned in the second and third slots, competing with other sea ports of the country. There, however, prevailed a lull since 2008-09, with some adverse geo-morphological changes in the river regime, flight of POL Crude cargo to a neighbouring port the port was, however, unable to spare itself of the ripple effect due to the general global economic downturn, manifest in the last few years, with sharp hardening of the dollar.

With a slew of new investments and initiatives unfurled by the new Government and trade expectations also picking up, its most heartening to note that Kolkata Port handled 46.292 million tonnes (mt) of traffic in 2014-15, around 12% higher than the traffic handled during last fiscal and which also compares favourably with the growth of 4.65% registered by the major ports of India. In container traffic too, KoPT handled a record high of 6,30,095 TEUs in 2014-15, clocking a 12.11% growth vis--vis last year, while retaining its 3rd rank amongst major container handling Ports, besides handling the highest number of vessels in the major port circuit. Interestingly, our Kolkata Dock System, one of the ports twin docks being almost written off a few years ago for its traffic stagnation, handled an all time high cargo traffic of 15.282 mt in 2014-15, recording a significant growth of 18.7% over last year. All the performance indices recorded significant improvement both at KDS & HDC in 2014-15 vis--vis the last year. HDC became the first port in the Go Green initiative in use of eco friendly Bio-diesel, in operative locomotives, cargo handling/ fire fighting equipment etc.