The Hindu Business Line : Concor’s Delhi terminal barred from handling heavy metal scrap

The container operations scene is further hotting up with the fight moving to the kinds of goods that are allowed to be handled in a container depot. While usually the new container train operators have taken their grievances to the Government seeking a level playing field, it is now Container Corporation of India’s (Concor) turn to cry ‘injustice’.

Concor has moved the Commerce Ministry against the DGFT’s recent move that barred Concor from handling heavy metal scrap at its Tughlakabad inland container depot in Delhi. The depot has handled an average of about 700 20-feet equivalent units (TEUs) containers stuffed with heavy metal scrap per month in the first quarter this fiscal.

DGFT move

A notification issued by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in early July denotified the Tughlakabad container depot as a heavy metal scrap handling terminal. Simultaneously, the DGFT notified the Loni container depot of Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC), which is operated by a private firm — Worlds Window Infrastructure and Logistics, for handling heavy metal scrap. Both the Tughlakabad and Loni container depots are located in the National Capital Region.

The DGFT move, while stopping the flow of heavy metal scrap traffic to Concor’s Tughlakabad depot, is also expected to benefit CWC’s inland container depot at Loni. “We have taken up the issue with the Ministry of Commerce, the DGFT and the Central Board of Excise and Customs. While the Government is free to add more container depots that can handle heavy metal scrap, we would like to know what was the exact problem with our Tughlakabad terminal,” Mr R.K. Mehrotra, Managing Director, Concor, said on the issue. Concor has developed special facilities to handle the scrap traffic, with separate areas allotted for the same, he said.

ICD Dadri

Although the ICD at Dadri in the NCR, developed jointly by Concor and Maersk, also handles heavy metal scrap, but the volumes handled are much lower there — in the range of some 100-150 containers per month, Mr Mehrotra said.

Incidentally, most of the new private container train operators who have entered the sector use the Loni terminal in the NCR at present to load/unload their containers because they claim that the conditions imposed by Concor for allowing these players to use the Tughlakabad ICD facilities are stringent.

Moreover, about 25-30 importers of heavy metal scrap have also raised the issue with Commerce Ministry officials demanding restoration of ICD Tughlakabad facility, said sources.

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