Ships sail Mongla port’s newly dredged channel

Ships with a hull or draught about 10.5m have now started sailing to and fro newly dredged channel on Mongla Port’s outer bar.

A press release was issued by the Mongla Port Authority in this regard that stated that ships have started sailing the channel since yesterday (Tuesday).

This development comes weeks after 11 foreign ships were berthed at the second largest sea port of the country on October 26.

The government has taken various epoch making steps to enhance capability of Mongla Port.

On November 15, 2017, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) had approved the Tk712.50 crore 'Dredging at outer bar of Mongla Port Channel' project  for dredging the outer bar of Pashur channel to enhance Mongla port’s large ship handling capacity.

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On December 13, 2018, MPA signed an agreement with Hong Kong River Engineering Co Ltd-China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation JV for dredging the channel.

Two separate sections were dredged. One was 20km south from Heron Point, inside the bay, and the other, adjacent Heron point. While the parts in the deep sea have already been dredged, 85% of the work on the section near Heron Point has been completed.

With the dredging at the outer bar, the channel has a depth of 8.5m, and ships with 10.5 hull can sail during high tide due to rise in water level.

So far the overall progress of the project is 95% and the remaining work will be completed by December 2020, said the press release.

The main objective of the project was to increase the navigability of the Mongla Port Channel for handling ships with 10.5-metre draught. For this, the plans were to dredge some 10.39million cubic metre of earth in the outer bar area of the port channel alongside conducting supervision by the hydraulic experts and evaluation of the impact of modeling.

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Mongla Port Authority officials had said at the time that ships with more than 8.5 metre draft could not go through the outer bar area of the port channel and once the project is implemented, ships with 10.5 metre draught would be able to go through the outer bar.

Besides, the use of Mongla Port is expected to be increased manifold due to the construction of the Padma Bridge along with rail link, establishment of railway tracks from Khulna to Mongla and construction of Khan Jahan Ali Airport, 1320 MW coal-fired power plant at Rampal, and establishment of special economic zone near the Port area.