The Hindu Business Line : Plea to address congestion at JN port

According to Mr Rakesh Mehra, Chairman, Synthetic and Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council, "The situation is quite serious and needs to be addressed immediately. Exporters are finding it difficult to plan their shipments as the cases of export cargo `shut outs' from the scheduled vessels have become frequent."

The reason for the congestion has been attributed to the massive growth in volumes of export cargos handled by these ports. The release said that since the NSICT commenced operations in April 1999, cargo volumes had increased by more than 30 per cent annually and the existing infrastructure had allowed them to accommodate this growth till mid-2003.

Another factor was the inability of Concor to swiftly move the import containers lying at the port terminals to various inland container terminals.

The inadequate development of infrastructure at other ports in Gujarat had resulted in the diversion of export containers meant to be shipped through these ports to the JN port.

Also exporters of containerised cargo, who hitherto took their containers directly to ports to be loaded on to the vessel, now have to send their containers to buffer yards first. Buffer yards are unable to move the containers to port on time within the vessel cut-off time due to massive pendency and congestion at port gates.

Mr Mehra said: "Exporters are facing problems with their overseas buyers as the shipment schedules committed by them are getting severely disrupted due to port congestions. The port congestion will affect exports during the peak months of March and April." He urged the Government to take steps to resolve congestion at these ports.