Comments
After taking the coastal route to move foodgrains from Kakinada to Kerala earlier this year, the Food Corporation of India is now trying out a new sea-river-road route to move rice from Visakhapatnam to Agartala through Bangladesh to save on transportation costs.
FCI despatched its first consignment of 5,000 tonnes of rice from Visakhapatnam to Agartala using AllCargo Logistics’s multi-purpose vessel, Laxmi, earlier this month.
With both the movements yielding significant savings in transportation costs, FCI is expected to continue using these two routes on a regular basis, besides exploring new options for coastal movement.
It first started with the movement of 20,000 tonnes of foodgrains from Kakinada to Kerala along the coast earlier this year.
After a couple of more such movements, FCI has decided to move similar parcels of foodgrains along this route every month.
In the latest experiment, it despatched the rice parcel from Visakhapatnam to Diamond Harbour in Kolkata. It will then be loaded on to barges to take the river route to Ashuganj in Bangladesh, before taking the road route to Akura and finally in trucks to Agartala. As the movement involves passage through Bangladesh, it is regulated by Protocol on Inland Water Trade and Treaty signed between India and Bangladesh.
“The entire movement is likely to take 15 days including loading and discharge, as some extra days are required for necessary permission. But subsequent journeys along this route will take shorter time and be much cheaper than rail or road movement,” Ashok Shrivastava, CEO (Shipping Services) of AllCargo Logistics, said. The transportation cost is likely to be half of what it would take for the parcel to be despatched by the conventional rail-road route through Punjab-Haryana, he told Business Line.
After FCI, steel makers such as Tatas and Jindal are exploring options to move steel from Kolkata to Mongla in Bangladesh through coastal route, while Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd has expressed interest to buy some barges for coastal movement of its products.
In January, the Government proposed a new incentive package for coastal shipping, but it could not be implemented due to the elections.
The Modi Government is now expected to soon clear the proposal, which include a cash incentive of 50 paise per tonne per nautical mile to manufacturers of eight commodities, including steel, fertiliser and cement to shift to coastal movement.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.