The Hindu Business Line : Coimbatore ICD box throughput sees 67 pc growth

CENTRAL Warehousing Corporation (CWC)-run inland container depot at Singanallur here is sitting pretty with a volume growth in container throughput registered in export, import and air cargo portfolios.

The Singanallur ICD custodian is basking on a 67-per cent growth registered on containerised export cargo volume handled this year (up to October). The climate in the logistic sector here pointing to a surge in imports too.

But the prime mover behind the CWC's impressive performance in export cargo seems to be the volume growth in bonded trucking. As compared to 45 truck loads of bonded export air cargo handled during 2003-04, CWC's Singanallur container terminal could move a whopping 260 trucks of bonded cargo (between April-October) to the airport at Kochi. Nearly 90 per cent of this air-cargo processed by it were booked on behalf of Emirate Airlines through the latter's authorised road transport operators.

Significantly, bulk of this air cargo volume handled by the CWC is the ones that were shifted out of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) administered interim air cargo terminal at the Peelamedu airport.

According to shipping/custom house agency sources, the switch in export air-cargo volume from AAI air cargo complex to CWC inland terminal was partly triggered by the reluctance of the customs authorities in extending the permission given to a private transporter signed up for carrying the bonded trucking of air-cargo on behalf of the specified airliners from Coimbatore.

The customs department had instead wanted that AAI as the custodian of the air cargo operation from Coimbatore airport, should stand guarantee by furnishing bonding directly with the department.

The volume switch of bonded cargo from AAI to CWC has occurred in the face of delay on the part of the AAI in meeting the customs stipulation on bonding and by the time the AAI resolved the issue, it became too late for it to retrieve the lost business as the shippers and their line operators opted to stick on with the CWC and its approved transporters to ferry their air-cargo to Kochi port, local clearing and forward agencies say.

The AAI's air-cargo terminal, which handled over 2,000 tonnes of expo/import cargo during 2003-04, has seen its volume during the current year plummeting to 800 tonnes (up to October).

Cargo transporting industry sources say that in addition to the bonded trucking volume, CWC's Singanallur container station is likely to take away a good chunk of cargo business from the Container Corporation of India (Concor), another ICD operating here, which currently in the process of shifting its container depot operation to its new premises in peripheral Irugur is in the throes of transient problem.

The relocation of Concor's IC terminal expected to be gone through by next year has already thrown up some uncertainty for the trade to encounter in booking through Concor terminal in the city.

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