Kolkata, March 11 (IANS): The city's dockyard under Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) on Wednesday said it has handled a record cargo of 500,447 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) from April last year till March 10.

KoPT, in a statement said it handled 256,679 TEUs of imports while exports accounted for 243,768 TEUs of cargo.

TEU is used as an unit of measuring container capacity.

The port's chairman, R.P.S. Kahlon said it was a major milestone in the history of the company "despite the grave operational constraints of low navigational draft in the river, unavoidable ship detentions due to lock operations of the impounded dock, and tide dependence in ship movement -- which all are unique to this historic river-port".

He said the port was able to achieve such cargo handling feats by adopting new technology in container handling by inducting four high capacity MHC (mobile harbour cranes) at three berths besides other advancements.

Kahlon further said the Kolkata Dock System under KoPT will be able to handle 520,000 TEUs by the end of March 2015.

Containerisation facilities were implemented in the city's docks in 1979.