The Hindu Business Line : `Visakha box terminal geared to handle additional traffic'

VISAKHA Container Terminal (VCT), Visakhapatnam port's container terminal, is all geared to handle any number of containers, both imports and exports, that could not be routed through the Jawaharlal Nehru port in view of the present congestion there, according to a spokesman for Visakha Container Terminal Pvt Ltd, the joint venture company that runs VCT.

"The facilities at VCT are top class and the connectivity to it is excellent," said the spokesman, while talking to Business Line over the phone from Visakhapatnam. VCT , which was launched just two years ago, is now experiencing a surge in throughputs, he said. "Two years ago, we started with seven vessel calls and an average throughput of 1,000 TEUs a month and now we handle about 17/18 vessel calls with an average throughput of 5,000 TEUs a month," he said, adding that the traffic handled included both local and ICD (inland container depot).

The ICD-related traffic started picking up from August last year when the Container Corporation of India (Concor) began supporting VCT by launching regular services to connect it with the ICDs located in Nagpur and Delhi. From May this year, Concor launched weekly services between Delhi and VCT in both the directions.

Now, VCT is also linked to the ICDs located at Hyderabad, Gwalior and Ludhiana through the Concor services. VCT, the spokesman emphasised, was suited to handle the shipments to and from Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Singapore and a host of other countries in the region and even beyond. There was no reason why India's exports and imports to and from these countries and routed through the ICDs located in Delhi and other places in the northern region should be handled at Jawaharlal Nehru port when the Visakhapatnam port was serviced by regular feeder as well as mainline services by a number of lines, he said.

"Visakhapatnam could be a natural gateway for trade with Eastern Sealane, more so because there will be savings of several days' transit time vis-à-vis Jawaharlal Nehru port and, more important, a freedom from congestion leading to delays and myriad other problems now clogging the route to the west coast ports," the spokesman said, adding that the sum total of costs caused by these problems could be enough to offset any benefit of operating through the west coast port.

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