The Hindu Business Line : Drop in Haldia's rail movement of containers

Rail movement of containers to and from Haldia has dropped for several reasons. First, the container throughput of Haldia dock is showing a declining trend. In 2005-06, the throughput was about 1,10,000 TEUs as compared to about 1,28,000 TEUs in 2004-05. In April-June this year, the throughput was around 16,000 TEUs as compared to more than 18,000 TEUs in the same period last year.

This could not have happened without the deliberate policy of the Kolkata Port Trust authorities. The authorities feel that Haldia being a bulk-handling port should concentrate on bulk items and its berths should not remain occupied by smaller container vessels to force much larger bulk carriers into pre-berthing detention. Instead, the Kolkata Dock System (KDS), where big vessels cannot come because of the draft problem, should concentrate on containers. Both Birganj ICD in Nepal and the Amingaon ICD in Guwahati, therefore, have been delinked from Haldia. These ICDs are now linked to the Container Corporation of India's terminal at the KDS.

Earlier, Haldia dock used to handle entire tea shipments routed through Amingaon ICD, but not any more.

Second, road transportation is preferred to rail transportation for evacuation of boxes out of the dock. For example, the Nepal cargo. Even now, the dock handles on an average 400 import containers for Nepal every month. However, these boxes are transported to Nepal by road. This is because Concor insists on full rake formation and at least 60 containers are needed to form a full rake. However, the 400 boxes arrive in small dribble insufficient to form a full rake. "We place the rake whenever there are enough containers to form a rake," say container sources, pointing out that one rake was placed every month for the past two months.

Third, even the number of containers handled by Concor for domestic movement has dropped sharply. The Japanese firm, which earlier used to utilise Concor's services for transportation of its products from Haldia to Nagpur and Hyderabad no longer uses the services. The shipments to Nagpur are undertaken by road, while those to Hyderabad are entirely by road from Haldia to Shalimar and from there by rail.

More Stories on : Shipping | Railways | West Bengal

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

Stories in this Section
New India-led group bags AI insurance cover

Air Deccan flight to Tirupati

Kuwait airline gets nod for 1,300 more seats to India

Drop in Haldia's rail movement of containers

Kochi port to deepen channel

SriLankan Airlines net up 48.3%

Aviation policy cannot be changed: Patel