The Hindu Business Line : ‘Our strength is infrastructure’

It is 20 years now since Indian Railways launched its wholly-owned subsidiary, Container Corporation of India (Concor), to cater to the requirements of importers and exporters. Concor started with the acquisition of seven inland container depots (ICDs), earlier set up by various zonal railways. Over the years, it has gained in strength, both in size and value, and started handling the domestic traffic also, though international trade continues to be its mainstay. It is now facing competiton from private container train operators that have emerged on the scene.

Mr Yash Vardhan, Director (International Marketing & Operations), Concor, while speaking to Business Line during his recent visit to Shillong to attend the tea workshop, discussed various issue relating to his area of operations. Excerpts from the interview:

How was Concor’s international business growth in 2007-08?

The figures are yet to be finalised but we hope to post around 15 per cent growth over 1.71 million TEUs in 2006-07.

Are you happy with it?

I’m not unhappy because we’ll most probably surpass the target set for 2007-08. I concede there is always scope for further improvement. Perhaps we would have done a little better but for the slide in exports mainly due to the appreciation of the rupee vis-À-vis the US dollar.

The target for 2008-09?

We’re yet to finalise it but hopefully it should be more than two million TEUs and we’re gearing our infrastructure accordingly.

Are you acquiring more rolling stocks?

Yes. In the current year, we propose to acquire 20 rakes to bring the total number to more than 200. About 130 of them are deployed to cater to the export-import trade.

How many of the proposed acquisitions in the current fiscal will be deployed for the international trade?

Difficult to estimate right now as much will depend on the growth of our exports and imports.

What about terminals?

Two new terminals, at Suranasi near Jalandhar (Punjab), and Bhadoi near Mirzapur (UP), are to be launched in the current year, bringing the total number to 59. Also, the capacity of our mega terminal at Dadri is to be doubled to one million TEUs.

You’re concentrated on the west coast to cater to the international trade. Isn’t that so?

We are ready to offer services anywhere, any port, depending on the cargo inducement. The present traffic pattern makes sense to concentrate on Jawaharlal Nehru port and Mundra port on the west coast and Chennai on the east.

What about Visakhapatnam port, which has a state-of-the art container terminal?

We have domestic services to Visakhapatnam but not international service. This is largely because of the dearth of international traffic to and from the hinterland of the terminal. Also, not many mainline vessels presently call at Visakhapatnam port. But I’ve a feeling that this scenario will shortly change and accordingly we’ll step up our services. We have an ICD in the hinterland.

What about Kolkata port?

The throughput of Nepal traffic routed through the Kolkata Dock System is increasing. In 2007-08, the throughput, it is estimated, was more than 14,000 TEUs as compared to 10,700 TEUs in 2006-07. We’re very bullish about the traffic potential on the route. Unfortunately, tea exports through the Amingaon ICD are not growing. One reason for this is that it is virtually one-way traffic, there being hardly any imports moving from KDS to Amingaon with the result the exporters are required to reposition the empties at a cost. If the imports pick up, the exporters using the ICD will stand to benefit. Concor’s officers in eastern region will shortly undertake a market study of the size of imports into the North-East through KDS and how much of it could be transported by Concor.

How intense is the competition from the private container train operators?

We’re not afraid of competition and therefore not unduly worried over it.

Why?

Not all of them, I presume, are doing well. But more important, the size of the cake is big and it is increasing. There is room for everyone to grow. There is another point. Our strength is our infrastructure. None of the private operators can match Concor in terms of rakes, terminals, and most important, the size of trained manpower.

Are you targeting any new venture?

We’re mulling foraying into shipping services.

Are you acquiring ships?

No, we’ve no plans to acquire ships. We’ll most probably tie up with shipping lines and NVOCCs (non-vessel owning cargo carriers) to offer a total package to trade to handle their imports and exports right from their doorsteps. We may start with the countries in the West Asia Gulf and Far East. We invited expressions of interest (EoIs) and the response has been encouraging. The details are being worked out.

Any target date for launching shipping service?

No, not yet. These things take time.