The Hindu Business Line : Fall in volume due to rain disruption at JNPT unlikely: Concor

There have been some reductions in volumes at the JNPT as a result of the heavy rains and water logging. Mr Rakesh Mehrotra, Managing Director, Concor, says over the last few days the rains have resulted in some sort of suspension of work on the key side as well as on the rail side in the port.

Excerpts from CNBC-TV18's exclusive interview with Mr Mehrotra:

If you could give us an update, have you seen any reduction in volumes over the last week or so as a result of the heavy rainfall that's being seen in Mumbai? There were reports of a possible fall in volumes at JNPT?

As far as the situation at the JNPT is concerned, over the last few days, there has been heavy rains resulting in the suspension of work on the key as well as rail side in the port. Yesterday was exceptionally bad because there was strong wind as well.

The number of rakes that we are sending is continuously increasing because the Railways had taken up the work of doubling.

They had to do some interlocking arrangements for which they had taken a block.

That did affect the volumes, but it is only a temporary phase, because in terms of the number of rakes which we are pushing in, there will not be a drop in the volumes as such.

Disruption temporary

Going forward, could you just give us a hint of how many days of operations are likely to get hit because of the heavy rainfall?

Today the situation is much better as compared to yesterday. Yesterday we loaded 14 trains from there, today we expect to do about 16, as 18 trains are waiting at the moment for placement into the port.

In July, our EXIM volumes increased by as much as 32 per cent, so in terms of trade buoyancy, in terms of volumes coming in, the market is very buoyant and the volumes are growing at a very fast pace.

The overall average growth for the period of April-July is 20 per cent.

So the temporary disruptions for a couple of days don't affect volumes as such. We will maintain the flow of trains to 15-16 a day on a sustained basis. So, volumes are not going to be impacted by such temporary disruptions.

Monsoon woes

I am guessing you do see a slowdown to some extent in volumes in any case in the monsoon. Just want to get a word on that?

Every year during the monsoon, something or the other goes wrong; either there is flooding or there is some disruption in the port area due to some heavy rains or wind. So that's a normal phenomenon.

Targets

You have grown about 34 per cent on the topline and about 55 per cent on the bottomline. How does the future look to you and what kind of quantitative growth are you looking at?

In terms of physical growth, we had targeted about 16 per cent growth for the year, 16-18 per cent growth in the EXIM business and about 10-15 per cent growth in the domestic business. The first quarter results have shown that we have achieved our targets. As far as the growth prospects in the near future are concerned, we are very optimistic that we will maintain the physical volumes and of course the financial, the turnover growth and the bottomline growth, will continue.

Do you expect your margins to be under pressure in any sense?

You have seen the first quarterly results. Do you see any pressure on the margins?

But in the longer term?

In the longer term, it will take some time for the private players to get their inland container depots ready, get their rolling stock and start train services.

By that time, the volumes would have grown so much that Concor will still be able to maintain its growth trends, in spite of some other players running a few trains. It will not impact Concor's growth trend.