The Hindu Business Line : Haldia may lose tea traffic to Kolkata Dock System

A MOVE is afoot to ship Amingaon (Guwahati) inland container depot's (ICD) tea traffic through Kolkata Dock System (KDS) in preference to Haldia from the forthcoming tea shipment season due to begin in May/June.

If the move succeeds, Haldia dock will stand to lose that much of container traffic. In 2004-05, the ICD throughput was 1899 TEUs. Ever since ICD was commissioned some two decades ago, the tea consignments for exports handled by it were shipped through Haldia dock.

The issue of abandoning Haldia in favour of KDS came up for discussion at the annual meeting of tea shippers, shipping lines, Container Corporation of India (Concor) and others held recently in Shillong (Meghalaya). The KDS officials present at the meeting pushed through the issue, explaining why the ICD shipments through KDS were preferable to Haldia.

First, the railway freight. Concor now loads into the freight the cost of moving the empties between Haldia and Kolkata. The cost comes to about Rs 4,000 per TEU. If the journey to and from Haldia is dispensed with, the cost will be reduced to that extent.

Second, Concor's new terminal in KDS is going to be commissioned soon. The modern terminal will be complete with enough space for stacking the boxes. Finally, KDS authorities are offering attractive rates to woo container traffic. The measures have already yielded results. In 2004-05, the container throughput at KDS was 1,59,242 TEUs as compared with 1,22,419 TEUs in 2003-04. The corresponding figures for Haldia were 1,28,750 TEUs (1,36,657 TEUs).

However, not all the shipping lines present at the meeting were convinced of the rationale of diversion of the ICD traffic from Haldia to KDS, it is learnt. They, therefore, have sought time to examine the probable implications of such diversion. After all, the draft at KDS is much lower than that at Haldia. Which means, the average parcel load of the vessels will be lower at KDS than at Haldia.

The other issues which came up for discussion at the Shillong meeting were Concor's insistence on full rake movement. This followed the new regulation enforced by the Railways from November last year that Concor must pay the haulage charge for a minimum of 30 wagons (flats) to the Railways irrespective of the actual number of flats moved. Each flat can carry two containers. A rake that is normally operated by Concor on the Amingaon-Haldia circuit normally consists of 35 flats (equivalent of 70 boxes). Which means if the cargo inducement at Amingaon is less than 60 containers (equivalent of 30 flats) at any point, Concor will stand to lose and therefore will perhaps wait for additional boxes to arrive.

In other words, Concor may delay the departure of a rake from Amingaon till a full rake has been formed. This may push up the average turnaround time of the rake.

Finally, Concor suggested a marginal increase in freight on the route. However, no decision has yet been taken on this.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Aircraft acquisition: AI board to meet in Mumbai on April 26

IA cancels flights of Hyderabad-Singapore-Hyderabad sectors

Shell-Total combine commissions LNG terminal, port at Hazira

Haldia may lose tea traffic to Kolkata Dock System

Tax on goods transport agency services — DGST to withdraw controversial letter on scope of abatement

Pakistan may send rly officials here for training

Rlys earns Rs 13,105 cr from coal transport