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Kolkata Port plans to invite qualifying bids for the development of container terminal at Diamond Harbour within a few days. The proposed terminal will handle up to 1 million twenty foot equivalent unit (TEU) containers annually. At present, Kolkata port handles 5.26 lakh TEU containers a year.
Mr M.L .Meena, Chairman, Kolkata Port Trust, was speaking at a trade meet here.
He urged traders to use Kolkata Port for their export import (EXIM) cargo to countries like China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and South East Asian region.
Concor
He also requested Container Corporation of India (Concor), the largest container train operator, to offer a more frequent, dedicated train service to the port. This would help provide faster evacuation options to the potential port users.
Mr Meena also sought a feedback from shippers on what prevents them from using the port. “Are the land-side (hinterland connectivity) charges higher, are the port charges higher,” he asked. “We are ready to reduce charges if the shippers were to commit cargo,” Mr Meena said. He added that the port has a distance advantage vis-à-vis container terminals in JN Port.
Concor agreed that there is a significant scope to transfer a larger share of container handled at Kolkata port through the rail network.
This gets reflected in Concor's exim traffic share across ports. Mr Anil Kumar Gupta, Managing Director, Concor, pointed out that only 22 per cent of the total export-import traffic handled by ports is moved by container trains. The remaining traffic on land is transported on the road network.
Out of this, 96 per cent of Concor's export import (exim) traffic moves to just four ports — JN Port, Mundra, Pipavav and Chennai.
Concor offered to provide faster transportation times at a competitive cost to the importers and exporters of Northern hinterland.
Mr Manoj Akhouri, Group General Manager, Concor, pointed out that traders could use Concor's depots in Kanpur, Madhosingh, Durgapur and container freight station (CFS) in Kolkata to transport cargo to the Kolkata port.
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