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Santanu Sanyal

"We have more than 50 ICDs in operation throughout the country and not even one of them is in as bad a condition as the one at Balasore," Mr Kohli observed.

Kolkata , Sept. 9

CONTAINER Corporation of India (Concor) is to lay more emphasis on the haulage of domestic traffic such that the volumes of domestic and international traffic are in equal proportions within the next few years.

Right now, the international traffic accounts for nearly two-thirds and the domestic the balance one-third of Concor's total throughput.

Mr A.K. Kohli, Managing Director of Concor, told Business Line here on Monday that there was a proposal to convert Concor's inland container depot (ICD) at Balasore in Orissa into a domestic terminal in view of the absence of any cargo support from the export-import trade. The steps had been initiated to start domestic operation there at the earliest. He regretted that contrary to earlier perception, no export-import traffic could be generated for the Balasore ICD, presumably because of not-so-satisfactory state of the industries located in the region. "We have more than 50 ICDs in operation throughout the country and not even one of them is in as bad a condition as the one at Balasore," Mr Kohli observed.

Spread over an area of 17 acres, the Balasore ICD has a paved area of four acres and warehouse measuring 6,000 sq metres complete with a railway siding. Built at a cost of about Rs 3 crore, the ICD has remained idle for the past three years for want of traffic. For traffic, Concor had pinned a good deal of hope on a few industries located in the vicinity but only to draw a blank. Concor therefore has initiated discussion with domestic freight forwarders and others to handle the domestic traffic.

Expressing concern that the huge pendency problem at Jawaharlal Nehru Port (including the Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal), he said some measures by Concor recently did bring down the problem only to increase in past few days due to the transport strike. Concor, he pointed out, accounted for only 37 per cent of the traffic generated at JNPT, meaning there was scope for stepping up the figure further, to at least 60 per cent. But he was not sure how that could be achieved if the present situation persisted.

Faced with the huge accumulation of boxes, the trade, he pointed out, was looking for alternative routes and accordingly routes to Chennai and Mundra had been opened up. He indicated that there was a demand from the exporters and importers in North India also to open up a route through Kolkata port particularly for shipments to and from the Far Eastern destinations. He hoped that the terminal to be constructed in the Kidderpore dock under Kolkata Dock System would meet the requirement. Once the Kidderpore terminal was fully operational, Concor would close down the present terminal at Cossipore.

Asked why the route to Visakhapatnam port where a modern container terminal had been commissioned was not being opened up, Mr Kohli replied that Concor had already announced the rates and its services were available and it was now for the terminal operators to generate traffic. He felt that the trade and shipping lines were yet to show enough interest in the Vizag terminal.

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