The Hindu Business Line : Heavy metal scrap — JNPT announces 2-month import freeze from Sept 15

REALISING that the sudden spurt in import of heavy metal scrap (HMS) by Punjab traders as a result of heavy speculation in the market regarding its price was largely responsible for the congestion at Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNPT) in the past few weeks, the port authorities have decided to impose a temporary freeze on fresh import of the product.

As part of its efforts to decongest its two container terminals, JNPT has decided not to accept any import of containers containing HMS for 60 days from September 15.

The September 15 deadline was given to the HMS traders so that they can complete the existing import deals by that time, as some consignments are still on their way to the port.

Sources told Business Line that the recent spurt in demand for steel in China triggered off intense price speculations in the domestic HMS market, leading to traders resorting to heavy imports with expectations of a price surge.

As most of these imports were Ludhiana-bound, bulk of the imported HMS containers landed up at JNPT, compounding the problem of congestion.

As on July 30, about 5,400 HMS containers had piled up at the two container terminals at the port, with all of them bound for the Dhandari Kalan Inland Container Deport (ICD) at Ludhiana.

What made matters worse for JNPT was that this ICD was also not capable to handle such a load, which further constricted movement of the loaded containers from the port.

When contacted, Mr Ravi Budhiraja, JNPT Chairman, admitted that the Ludhiana-bound HMS containers were largely responsible for the present congestion.

"As on Friday morning, the pendancy at both the terminals was about 7,800 (3,757 at JNPT terminal and 4,037 at NSICT). Out of these, about 4,400 were HMS containers bound for Ludhiana," he told Business Line.

Mr Budhiraja was hopeful that with the steps to decongest the port, including the 60-day freeze on fresh import of HMS, the congestion would ease within the next 30 days.

"Concor has agreed to run an average of 2.5 rakes daily from the port for the Dhandari Kalan ICD. In addition to this, Concor will also run one rake each from the JNPT terminal and NSICT daily to the Dadri ICD to evacuate the Ludhiana-bound containers. The containers taken to Dadri will be moved to Ludhiana by Concor subject to availability of space at Ludhiana."

Even while the Ludhiana-bound containers were aggravating the congestion problem, the heavy monsoon downpour during the last 10 days has delivered another setback to the port's decongestion initiative, as breaches on railway tracks have stifled supply of rakes to the port.

In fact, the pendancy had been brought down to about 5,000 a few days back, but non-availability of rakes increased it to about 7,800 as on Friday morning.

With the rains causing several breaches on tracks, including a major one on the vital Ambala line, Concor could supply only one rake on Thursday, as against the normal supply of 12 rakes.

Going by indications, it will take at least a week or 10 days before the normal supply of rakes is restored.