Samsara Group plans one more Container terminal

Looks at taking over terminal in Gujarat or Maharashtra.

Hind Terminals Ltd., a subsidiary of Samsara Group and Sharaf Group of UAE, is planning to take over an existing container terminal in Gujarat.

The company already has a container terminal in Nhava Sheva and is looking for another terminal either in Gujarat or in Maharashtra.

The company, which flagged off Gujarat's first private freight train from Container Corporation of India Ltd.'s Ahmedabad-based Sabarmati Inland Container Depot (ICD) to Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) last week, is also planning to add one more train in its existing facility as well as to start one train each from Mundra and Pipavav.

Mukesh Oza, President, Samsara Group, told Business Standard, said, "As a part of our future expansion plans we are planning to have one more container terminal. We presently have one container terminal at Nhava Sheva in Maharashtra, but looking at the business growth we are looking at having one more terminal. The new terminal may be in Maharashtra or Gujarat. We will be focussing on port management in the future."

Giving details of the plan, he added, "We might develop the new terminal by buying land like we did in Nhava Sheva or we may go for take over of an existing container terminal in these states. However, this will come later as our main focus as of now will be on the private trains." He did not reveal how much the company is planning to invest.

The first private train of Gujarat by Hind Terminal Ltd was flagged off by Concor's Managing Director Rakesh Meherotra. Oza said, "The freight train will run from Sabarmati in Gujarat to JNPT every four days. It has a category 1 licence and is one of the four licence holders to start operations after the Parliament approved a proposal in 2005 to privatise rail freight services. At present we have allotted one train on this route. After three months we will add one more train to this route and our frequency will be every two days after the addition."

Talking about the investment in the private trains he said, "Each train cost us Rs 12 crore. We have ordered 14 trains. One more train will be added on this route. While the rest of them will be run from locations like Kota, Ludhiana, Sonipat, Delhi NCR. We are also thinking of starting new freight trains from one each from Mundra and Pipavav. However, that will come at a later stage. At present our total investment in the private train project is near about Rs 200 crore which includes the licence fee we paid to the government of India."