The Hindu Business Line : Additional land for Nhava Sheva box terminal — JNPT to ask P&O Ports to sort out arrears dispute first

THE board of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) has decided that P&O Ports should first sort out its dispute with the port trust over payment of certain arrears worth a few crores of rupees before the additional land demand made by the private operator for its Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT) could be entertained.

A decision to this effect was taken by the Board of Trustees of JNPT at a meeting held on February 13. "There are certain disputed issues including payment of arrears by NSICT to JNPT for deployment of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel. First these issues have to be sorted out, only then will we entertain P&O Ports proposal for additional land outside the licensed area," a Shipping Ministry official said.

Faced with a severe congestion problem at its container terminal, P&O Ports have sought certain concessions from JNPT including 5 hectares of additional land outside the licensed area to keep their inland container depot (ICD) containers, as one of the ways to overcome the situation at NSICT.

"The additional land would help NSICT have more space to store their containers before loading/unloading them on to trains for quick evacuation of boxes," the official said. As against a designed capacity of 6 lakh twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), NSICT is currently handling almost double the traffic, leading to operational constraints. "Given the volumes they are handling, there will be shortage of space. Naturally, there will be congestion," the official said. NSICT has argued that the existing land allotted to them in the licensed area was "insufficient" for storing containers.

As per the concession and licence agreement signed between JNPT and P&O Ports for developing and operating the NSICT, P&O Ports was to bear about 40 per cent of the total expenses incurred by JNPT in deploying CISF personnel to safeguard the port limits including the container terminals. Since the overall supervision of the area is looked after by a single CISF contingent, some portion of the total bill paid by JNPT for this activity would have to come from P&O Ports which operates NSICT.

"After concurring with this clause in the concession agreement, P&O Ports have now submitted that it will pay only according to the CISF personnel actually deployed," the official said, adding that P&O Ports will have to abide by the licence agreement without any deviations in this regard.

The labour trustees on the board of JNPT have opposed the demand for additional land made by P&O Ports. "We are against it. The Government should not go beyond the terms and conditions of the licence agreement. If at all the terms and conditions of the licence agreement are to be changed, then the royalty to be paid by P&O Ports to JNPT should also undergo a change," a labour trustee said.