• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Santanu Sanyal

Kolkata, April 14

In 2007-08, the Amingaon inland container depot (ICD) handled 2,501 of TEUs of tea exports as compared to 2,597 TEUs in 2006-07. This was revealed at the tea workshop organised by Container Corporation of India (Concor) at Shillong recently.

Mr A.K. Behera, Chief General Manager of Concor, Eastern Region, while addressing the workshop, attributed the drop to several factors such as the delayed commencement of tea shipment, stiff competition from Kenya and appreciation of the rupee vis-À-vis dollar.

The throughput in the current fiscal (2008-09), Mr Behera estimated, would be more, around 3,500 TEUs and he based his optimism on the bright prospects of tea exports, thanks to the not-so-satisfactory Kenyan crop so far this year. But the representatives of tea industry were not so bullish and, therefore, expressed the view that they would rather wait-and-watch how the season develops before zeroing in on any figure.

The 2007-08 tea shipment season was unique in the sense that for the first time both domestic and exim containers were moved in the same rake both ways, i.e. from Amingaon ICD to Kolkata Dock System and vice-versa, he said. For the first time, the Concor’s Amingaon-KDS service handled domestic tea containers — more than 400 TEUs. The total volume of outward containers handled during the year was around 3,500 TEUs as compared to 1,500 TEUs last year.

Also, for the first time, high-speed BLC rakes were introduced to achieve a lower transit time. The average running time to the port was about 66 hours as compared to 68 hours in the previous year. In 2007-08, Concor moved 44 rakes with an average payload of 58 TEUs as compared to 36 rakes with an average payload of 72 TEUs in 2006-07. The reduced exim payload was due to combined movement of domestic and international containers.

Another interesting feature, as it was pointed out, had been steadily rising share of the 40 foot containers (FEUs). In 2007-08, FEUs accounted for 94.33 per cent as compared to 92.66 per cent in 2006-07 and 91 per cent in 2005-06 and around 80 per cent in 2004-05.

Among the shipping lines participating in the shipments through the Amingaon ICD, Shipping Corporation of India topped the list with a share of 883 TEUs, followed by Maersk 772 TEUs, United Liner Agencies 680 TEUs, PIL 18 TEUs and others four TEUs. Among the shippers, Hindustan Lever topped the list (1,059 TEUs), followed by McLeod Russel (932), Tata Tea (299), Assam Company (183 ), Goodricke (12) Apeejay (10 ) and J.K. Industries (six ). The largest number of boxes were shipped to the UAE (963 TEUs), followed by UK (957), Sri Lanka (197 ), Egypt (114) Pakistan (76), USA (64), Iran (51), Saudi Arabia (22), Indonesia (18) and Singapore (four TEUs).

Mr Behera informed that the work to expand and modernise the facilities at Amingaon ICD at a cost of over Rs 3 crore was in progress and should be over by October. The scope of the work included, among others, extension of the existing lines to accommodate full length rakes, earmarking separate lines for exim and domestic trade, improvement of the surface, paving with CC blocks the extended platform, improvement in illumination and better water storage facility.

More Stories on : Supply Chain Management | Tea | Exports & Imports

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Air Dravida to fly as non-scheduled airline from July

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line