With the Mormugao Ports Authority (MPA) struggling to invest in a mobile harbour crane for movement of cargo containers, industries minister Mauvin Godinho on Friday said he will ask the Centre to intervene.
A visibly irritated Godinho questioned how the port expected to survive if it could not get the harbour crane deployed despite the industry repeatedly asking for the crucial equipment at the port.
“I am surprised that this has not been addressed,” said Godinho. “It should have been addressed on a war footing. If you are not doing the basics right, how can you expect the port to run.”
He was speaking at a conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry’s (CII) Goa council on multimodal logistics.
Godinho said that the state, through the Goa Logistics and Warehousing Policy is using the port to showcase that the state has what it takes to promote seamless cargo movement. The lack of the harbour crane is hampering this effort.
“Can’t we fix one crane? We should have had this two cranes operational. Instead the same old thing continues with people losing money, economy losing money, industry losing money and the port losing money. These are things that have to be fixed at the earliest. There is no excuse whatsoever,” said Godinho.
CII’s mentor for logistics Anthony Gaskell explained that the lack of the harbour crane deters container vessels from operating at Mormugao and also forces local manufacturers to transport cargo via road and rail to JNPT in Mumbai.
Godinho, who was responding to concerns raised by industry players at the conference, said that he would speak to chief minister Pramod Sawant and the Union minister for shipping and ports to make the mobile harbour crane operationalised soon.