Dredging boosts activities at Mongla Port as ship arrivals rise in FY24

Mongla Port, the 2d-greatest seaport in Bangladesh, has finished unprecedented development, with the dredging of the Pashur Channel enabling higher ships to dock.

This day (1 December) marks 74 years of the establishment of the port and the day will seemingly be renowned with varied programmes.

The completion of contemporary dredging initiatives will toughen the port’s means to handle vessels with a draft of as much as 10 meters, paving the kind for handling higher ships and elevated cargo volumes.

For the time being, Mongla Port can accommodate 47 ships all over its jetties, mooring buoys, and anchorage components.

Navigation is supported by 69 strategically placed buoys, whereas services and products such as container handling equipment, reefer plug components, and expanded car parking salvage tremendously improved operational efficiency.

In step with the port authority, in the fiscal year 2023-24, the port witnessed a 2.30% upward push in ship arrivals, alongside well-known remark in cargo and container handling.

In FY24, cargo handling grew by 9.72%, container throughput elevated by 16.78%, and car imports rose by 13%. The port now targets an annual strategy of 1 crore 50 lakh tonnes of cargo and 400,000 TEUs of containers.

Established on 1 December 1950 in Chalna, Khulna, the port has been a cornerstone of the country’s import-export commerce, overcoming somewhat about a challenges over the many years.

Attributable to geographical components, the port’s operations had been relocated to Mongla in Bagerhat in 1953. The first British industrial ship, The Metropolis of Lyons, anchored at Joymonir Ghol on the Pashur River in the Sundarbans, marking the delivery of the port’s activities.

In 1977, the port became transformed into an self sustaining body named the Chalna Port Authority, later renamed Mongla Port Authority in 1987. Addressing navigability considerations alongside the waterways became one in every of the port’s major challenges, prompting extensive dredging efforts from the 1980s onwards to revitalise its operations.

A regional commerce hub

The Padma Bridge and improved infrastructure salvage elevated Mongla Port’s significance in regional commerce. Officers pressured out its transformation steady into a self-adequate and modernised facility.

Rear Admiral Shahin Rahman, chairman of the Mongla Port Authority, said, “Mongla Port has approach a lengthy diagram, and now we salvage undertaken varied initiatives to extra toughen its means. With these dispositions, the port is arena to play a critical just in the realm’s import-export commerce and economic vogue.”

To commemorate the occasion, Mongla Port Authority has organised varied programmes.

Within the murky, all home and global ships at the port blew their whistles for a minute to imprint the milestone.

This day’s (1 December) festivities will consist of a procession, a discussion session, and the presentation of awards to 29 organisations, including Toggi Transport and Logistics and Bashundhara Multi Trading, for his or her prominent contributions.