Concor plans to set up Gurgaon depot

With the internal container depot at Tughlakabad deeply congested, the Container Corporation of India (Concor) plans to set up another depot in Gurgoan. This is in addition to the Internal Container Depots(ICD) at Dadri, which became operational recently.

"We had received clearance to set the Gurgaon depot from the inter-ministerial council last week," Rakesh Mehrotra, managing director, Concor, told Business Standard. He added Concor would soon approach the railway ministry for rail links to Gurgaon.

With the container traffic towards the north increasing heavily, the setting up a depot in Gurgoan would substantially increase the Concor's capacity in handling the traffic, he added.

ICDs are also called dry ports and act as a link between the ports and the hinterland.

"The Gurgaon depot was projected to handle about 1 lakh twenty-foot-equivalent units of containers," Mehrotra said, adding that Concor would now initiate the procedure of acquiring land and custom clearances for setting up the depot.

At present, exporters are facing problems with the Tughlakabad ICD, with the government banning the trawlers to enter the city limits, owing to the spill-out of traffic over to the city area. The traffic at the ICD crossed about 4 lakh TEUs last year, he said.

Mehrotra also said the Concor instead was encouraging exporters to transport their consignments to Dadri, which had a lot of spare capacity. The Concor was also aiming to divert 30 per cent of the traffic from Tughlakabad to Dadri, he added.

"We are holding extensive meetings with exporters, to encourage them to move to Dadri," he said, adding that regular services from the Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Trust, Mundhra and Pipavava had started from Dadri.

He said the Concor was aiming to set up 23 terminals in the next two years, in addition to the existing 42. During the current year itself, the ICDs at Rawtha Road in Kota, Irugur and Tirupur near Coimbatore have become operational.

Another three at the Kolkata Port Trust, Dhappar in Chandhigarh and Mandideep in Bhopal would also become operational by the end of the year, he added.