The ongoing strike at the Haldia dock complex has already resulted in a loss of nearly Rs 50 crore to the country’s exchequer, according to port officials. Work at Haldia remained paralysed for most of June due to the strike called by the contractual workers and was completely stopped from June 27. The contractual workers, employed by handling agency, are in-charge of the on-shore operations. At present, there are nearly 3,500 such contractual workers.

Port officials said because of the strike, many ships have to be diverted to Paradeep and Vizag. So far, 15 vessels are stranded at the port and 22 at the sandheads for lack of men to carry out the manual operations. Only around eight vessels that did not require manual off-loading have been working.

Of the vessels that are waiting to be off-loaded are two that have coking coal and four have non-coking coal. While the former is used in steel industries, the latter is used in power industries and with the ships waiting to be off-loaded both these industries are certain to be affected now, said a port official.

The port has been losing around Rs 6 crore per day due to the strike and the ships too have already lost more than Rs 2 crore. Moreover, many of the companies now have to pay extra for the ships to be diverted to Paradeep or Vizag and bringing in the cargo from those ports.

“They are not our workers. But yes, the strike has resulted in huge losses for the port but we are trying to bring the warring parties together so that an amicable solution is found. The feud is between the contractual workers and their handling agents,” said A Majumdar, acting-chairman, KoPT.

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