Visakhapatnam: As in last year corona pandemic lockdown shut down every business and impact effectively, but on that time as well the Visakhapatnam Port Trust did well during Covid time. Not only this but port has achieved a target of 80 million tonnes in cargo handling for the year 2021-22.

Announcing this at a media conference here on Saturday, VPT chairman K Rammohan Rao said though the port fell short by four per cent over the previous year’s handling of 72.72 NMT, it could still meet the target of 69.84 MT in the just concluded year 2020-21 to rank second among major ports in the country. VPT target for this year is 77 MT to 80 MT. Though Goa and Paradeep ports are surging ahead, Vizag is not lagging behind in steam coal and coking coal to go up to the third position, he pointed out. VPT had also done well in exports of iron ore to China and South Korea, he revealed.

Here it is expected that for this year a cruise terminal would come up at the Vizag port shortly at a cost of Rs 103 crore, he announced, and hoped that the tourism activity would boost the port revenue. More foreign tourists would be able to visit the beautiful tourist spots in the region and the passenger traffic to Chennai and Paradeep would also increase, he said. While 2099 ships called on the port last year, the number was 2044 this year. However, the targets could be met, he stated.

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