The Hindu Business Line : Pendency problem hits JNPT again

Kolkata, June 25 The pendency problem has hit the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) again — the number of import containers awaiting evacuation being more 14,000 TEUs and another 1,000 TEUs awaiting Customs clearance.

Predictably, the authorities of the port have sought immediate intervention of the Container Corporation of India (Concor). “While we understand the imbalance between imports and exports at this stage, Concor could have averted this congestion by interacting with shipping lines continuously to envisage the flow of cargo well in advance as the port has no role in nomination of import containers to a particular inland depot,” port authorities stated in a communiqué to Concor. The authorities had earlier agreed to allocate an additional dedicated rail line to facilitate quicker evacuation of accumulated boxes from DP World’s terminal.

The present pendency problem, as Concour sources point out, has been thrown up by a mismatch — with imports exceeding exports. The average daily loading of import containers by Concor at JNPT is about 18-19 trains against the arrival of 14-15 trains of exports. In first two months of the current fiscal, imports totalled 131,000 TEUs and exports 89,700 TEUs. “We’re being required to move four to five rakes of the empties a day into JNPT and it costs,” the spokesman said.

Till June 23 this year, Concor’s daily average loading at JNPT has been 18.2 trains as compared to 14.6 in the same period of last year — Concor’s daily average loading at JNPT so far this year is up by 3.6 trains a day or more than 100 trains a month. “Yet there is a tendency to blame only Concor for the pendency problem and this unfortunate, more so when there are 15 other operators,” he added.