Decongestion drive at JNPT successful

Exporters, who were facing problems in shipping their consignments because of severe congestion at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), can breathe easy now.

The situation seems to have improved at the port, which was finding it difficult to handle the huge volume of export cargo.

A shortage of rakes for carrying containers was being cited as one of the reasons for congestion at the JNPT.

The Container Corporation of India (Concor), which deals with most of the rail-based movement of containers to and from ports, was finding it difficult to procure new rakes. This resulted in containers piling up at JNPT.

Latest figures show that Concor's rakes are returning empty from the port. A sign that the unloading of cargo at the ports was taking place smoothly now. As many as 40 flats, which carry the container wagons, have daily been returning empty in November.

In fact, seven trains returned without any containers, while another seven were only partly loaded, a railway ministry official said.

He said that the present pendency at 1,836 containers was below normal, and these could be accommodated in the railway warehouse itself. "We have reduced pendency to this level from a high of 8,000 containers in March," he added.

The government adopted a three-pronged strategy for easing congestion at the port. Apart from shifting 4,500 containers to the Central Warehousing container freight station, 2,000 more were to be shifted to Vashi. Some containers were also to be diverted to the Mumbai Port Trust, which has a capacity to accommodate up to 10,000 containers.

Concor has been making efforts to ease the infrastructure constraints in the movement of containers. Government officials said due to a delay in procurement of rakes, Concor had invited global tenders for their supply. A large order book position had resulted in a delay in supply by domestic manufacturers.

They added that Concor planned to add 3,000 more wagons in three years, which would enable it to handle around 2 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEU) of container traffic.

Concor would then be equipped to handle at least 80 per cent of the container traffic coming to Indian shores. The container traffic for April-October, 2004, was 2.4 million TEUs.

Since October, Concor has been getting three rakes every month and by December officials expect the situation to improve further.

Apart from improving the supply of rakes, Concor plans to open 5 new inland container depots, two of which will be located in Varanasi and Chandigarh.