The Hindu Business Line : Box movement by rail between Tughlakabad, Kolkata ports — Kolkata Dock System in talks with Eastern Rly, Concor

SENIOR officials of Kolkata Dock System (KDS), one of the two dock systems of Kolkata port, recently held a meeting with their counterparts in Eastern Railway and the Container Corporation of India to work out the modalities for starting container movement by rail between Concor's terminals located at Tughlakabad near Delhi and within KDS.

Although the container throughput at KDS is now around 17,000/18,000 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent unit) a month on an average, with a large number of them being to and from the northern region, hardly any box moves by rail between Tughlakabad and KDS. The containerised traffic to and from the region mostly moves by road.

One reason for this is that Concor normally insists on full rake traffic to run the service on a regular basis. KDS authorities, therefore, suggested that till such time enough export-import traffic was generated to form a full rake, a rake could still be formed by combining the exim containers, whatever available, with those of domestic traffic. There was no dearth of domestic traffic on the route. This was how, it was pointed out at the meeting, the container movement between Jawaharlal Nehru port and Tughlakabad started some 11 years ago and today JNPT is the largest container handling port. The KDS authorities also urged Concor and the Railways to announce fixed-day schedules for the services to be run between Tughlakabad and KDS, so that the trade could know well in advance the timing and plan accordingly. If everything proceeds as per plan, the fixed-day schedules, it is learnt, may be in force from the middle of February.

Meanwhile, the container throughput at KDS is rising steadily. Last year's (2004-05) throughput of 1,59,000 TEUs was surpassed on the 10th of this month and at this rate, dock sources hope, the current fiscal might end up with a throughput of around 2,00,000 TEUs.