The Hindu Business Line : Feeder operators plan to levy congestion surcharge

Chennai, Nov. 28 The Asian Feeder Discussion Group consisting of container feeder operators operating in and out of Chennai plans to levy a congestion surcharge of $100 a TEU (twenty foot equivalent units) following delays in turnaround of container vessels at the Chennai Container Terminal (CCT).

The surcharge is likely to be imposed from December 7 and an announcement is expected tomorrow from the Singapore-based group that consists of feeder operators such as Advance Container Lines (Pte) Ltd, Bengal Tiger Line Ltd and Sea Consortium Pte Ltd.

The group has said that there was an ‘inordinate delay in vessel turnaround; underutilisation of vessels leading to increase in port stays and inappropriate allocation of cranes,’ according to an industry source.

Container ships, especially small feeder vessels connecting Chennai with Singapore and Colombo, need to wait for three to four days to get a berth compared to a normal waiting time of less than a day.

Productivity at the terminal dropped by half to nearly 14 moves an hour.

As of this morning, four container vessels were at berth and five waiting outside due to reasons such as ‘not ready and agent disposal.’ Eight container ships are expected to reach Chennai in the next five days, said a source.

Yard position

Due to the congestion, the yard position at the terminal this morning was 11,071 TEUs and in a week it is expected to reach 14,000 TEUs against the operating capacity 6,500 TEUs, said a source.

According to CCT, the terminal experienced congestion due to inadequate evacuation of import containers in October and November. This was attributed to extraneous issues related to availability of trailers; condition of the roads; vessels arriving out of the agreed window; documentation requirements being incomplete in time for delivery of containers; festival holidays and lack of manpower to operate trailers engaged in receipt and delivery of boxes from the terminal.

Also, the terminal experienced severe swells due to a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal, which rendered three of the four berths unusable for two days. This led to a backlog of vessels awaiting berth at the terminal. With exports mounting and imports not being cleared from the terminal in a timely manner, the terminal yard has become severely congested and movement of both container handling equipment and trailers were hampered.

The delays led to increased turnaround time for trailers leading to increased waiting time for the trailers on the roads which, in turn, has led to restlessness among the drivers and cleaners engaged in these vehicles. The trailer drivers operating external trailers engaged in receivable and delivery of containers at CCT resorted to a flash strike on Tuesday, the CCT said.

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