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Raja Simhan T E

With the terminal nearly full, containers are to be stacked at the Hyundai car park area in West Quay

CONTAINERS PILED high inside the Chennai Container Terminal following a strike by the trailer operators from Wednesday morning. — Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , Sept. 15

About 8,500 containers, mostly imports, have piled up inside the container terminal following a strike by trailer operators since Wednesday morning.

There has been no movement of boxes from the terminal to various off-dock container freight stations in the last two days due to the strike. About 3,000 trailers transported boxes between the port and the CFSs located in city outskirts.

The private terminal can take up to a maximum of 12,000 boxes, said Mr Ennarasu Karunesan, CEO, Chennai Container Terminal. About 1,000 containers get added to the terminal every day, he told Business Line.

With the terminal nearing full capacity, he had got permission from the Chennai Port Trust to stack containers at the nearby Hyundai car park area in West Quay. "We have taken contingency measures till Sunday evening," he said.

Three container vessels - Tiger Shark (with 1,400 import containers), MSC Eliana (400 containers) and Belgian Express (1,400 containers) - are to be berthed in the next 24 hours, he said.

The trailer operators demand 100 per cent hike in freight rates, which currently ranges between Rs 1,100 and Rs 1,500. The hike followed restriction by the officials of the State Transport Department in not permitting vehicles to be overloaded.

Hitherto, a 40-foot trailer or a multi-axle vehicle used to carry two containers (overloaded) and a single axle vehicle would carry a single container, which itself was in excess of the vehicle's carrying capacity. However, in the last couple of days the transport department has been penalising overloaded vehicles. Due to this, the trailer operators demanded compensation from the trade for paying the penalty, the sources said.

In a meeting with port users, Chennai Port Trust officials and the Chennai container terminal officials, the operators were given a formula whereby they would be given an increase of Rs 400. The users on the other hand said they would consider paying Rs 250. A decision on this would, however, take some time since they had to discuss with various stakeholders, including clients, the users said. Negotiations are going on, said sources.

The Consultative Committee of City Chambers of Commerce, in a press release, said the chamber had proposed a parallel facility for container handling at Ennore. Yet, the Union Ministry of Shipping favoured creating a parallel facility at the Chennai port. This might not be the solution, the chamber said.

The chamber requested the Union Shipping Minister to immediately intervene and review the entire working of the Chennai port, as it believed that the present unrest will severely hurt the logistics at Chennai.

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