The Hindu Business Line : `Steady growth in container traffic in Rajiv Gandhi terminal'

India Gateway Terminal, a DP World group company, has said that the container traffic through the Rajiv Gandhi Container Terminal operated by the company at the Cochin Port Trust has been showing steady growth in the year 2006.

In July the Terminal had achieved the highest-ever monthly throughput of 21,592 TEUs and is very much on track to achieve the targeted throughput for the year 2006-07, a growth of about 30 per cent over 2005-06.

As compared to the throughput of July 2005, the terminal had registered a growth of 23 per cent in July this year, Mr Suresh Joseph, General Manager, said.

Increase in export volumes from Coimbatore, Tirupur, Bangalore and other hinterland locations and import of raw cashew have been the key to this performance, he said.

Customer friendly measures

Customer friendly measures like tracking of containers using the terminal Web site, regular information about the arrival and departure of vessels, simplification of gate procedures, round the clock operation at the pre-stage for receiving and customs examination of export containers have benefited exporters and importers by way of time and transaction cost.

Other measures on the anvil are tracking containers and vessel arrival/departure through SMS, a single point customer service desk and an interactive voice based information system, he added.

Kochi has also achieved a few other milestones in July, which include the highest parcel size handled per vessel of 1,547 TEUs, the maximum throughput in a day of 1,337 TEUs and the maximum throughput in a week of 7,885 TEUs. The average parcel size has also registered a gain, reaching 720 TEUs. The terminal also registered the highest throughput in both exports and imports in a month of 10,374 TEUs and 11,012 TEUs respectively.