The Hindu Business Line : Concor plans ICDs in Belgaum, Kota, Bhopal

THE Container Corporation of India (Concor) proposes to launch at least three new ICDs (inland container depots) in the current year (2004-05) to bring the total number to 56. The three new ICDs will be located at Belgaum (Karnataka), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) and Kota (Rajasthan). If everything proceeds as per schedule, a fourth one at Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) too might be ready towards the end of the year, according to Concor sources.

While the Belgaum ICD will mainly handle aluminium products (Indian Alumnium Company has a factory there) and sugar (northern Karnataka being a sugar belt), the one at Kota will handle stones. With several factories being located in and around Bhopal, the cargo inducement for the Bhopal ICD is considered adequate. The cargo inducement for the ICD to be set up at Visakhapatnam too, it is felt, will be substantial because Concor has already started handling boxes, both imports and exports, routed through the Visakhapatnam port's new and modern container terminal as well as a sizeable volume of domestic traffic.

Concor, the sources indicate, is also mulling setting up an ICD at Tirupur (Tamil Nadu) but is finding it difficult to get necessary land. "We've asked the Indian Railways for providing us suitable land but yet to receive the concrete reply," the sources observe. Alternatively, Concor might have to settle for a goods shed of the Railways. Tirupur is a major producer of hosiery goods.

Concor has before it proposals for setting up two more ICDs in Punjab - one each at Jullundar and Chandigarh. Right now it has only one ICD in the State at Ludhiana.

In 2003-04, the total throughput of all the Concor ICDs was a little more than 1.5 million TEUs, of which the exim traffic was around 1.25 million TEUs and the domestic traffic a little more than three lakh TEUs. But then it will be wrong to presume that all the ICDs did well. At least three ICDs located at Balasore (Orissa), Guntur (Andhra Pradesh) and Amingaon (Assam) have been laggards.

Till recently Balasore ICD remained virtually idle. Only now it has started handling some domestic traffic. The throughput of the Amingaon ICD, comprising mainly tea, has been steadily declining for the past few years. The same is true about the Guntur ICD, which, like the Amingaon ICD, is a seasonal ICD in the sense it handles mainly tobacco, which, like tea, being an agricultural commodity is a seasonal item.

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