Heavy rains hit ports operations at Mumbai

Mumbai: The blow out in the skies over Mumbai on Monday crippled cargo handling operations and ship movements at Mumbai Port and the neighbouring Jawaharlal Nehru port. The worst affected was Mumbai Port, as bulk cargoes, which cannot be handled during rains, form the mainstay of its throughput.

JNPT, which handles only containers, was not significantly affected, except for some delays in movement of ships.

Mumbai Port, which handles between 20,000 tonnes and 30,000 tonnes of cargo every day, could barely handle 2,000 tonnes during the brief periods of respite in rains during the day. What made it worse for the port was that it had to load and unload cargoes such as cold-rolled coils, sugar, rice and soyabean — none of these cargoes can be exposed to rains.

'In fact, the master of a ship will not even open the ship's hatch during rains to load CR coils,' a port official said.

Cargoes such as hot-rolled coils, heavy machinery and cars can be handled to some extent during rains, but the port did not have much of these on Monday.

Earlier, the port had undertaken its usual monsoon precautionary measures, including plugging of leakages and removing blockages in the dock areas.