Comments
Leading truck and bus maker Ashok Leyland has started using coastal shipping services to export its commercial vehicles to Bangladesh.
A consignment of 185 trucks was shipped from Chennai Port on Saturday bound for Mongla Port in Bangladesh, a key market for Ashok Leyland.
A RoRo (Roll on/Roll Off)-cum-general cargo vessel loaded with those trucks was flagged off by Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Shipping, through a video conference.
Union Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan was present at the ceremony at the Chennai Port.
This is the first time an automobile consignment has been moved from India to Bangladesh through sea route.
Time-saverAshok Leyland’s trucks were being sent to Bangladesh over land till recently, travelling a distance of about 1,500 km.
The hold up of traffic at the borders and the time taken by road leads to 25-30 days transit time for consignment, according to a press release from Chennai Port. But transport through the sea route will save about 15-20 days of travel time. Also, for this sea trip alone that involves transport of 185 trucks, a total of about 3 lakh vehicle km of road travel will be saved and that will be the extent of carbon footprint reduction. Besides saving time, coastal transport will also be more cost-effective and environment-friendly.
“For 40 years, we have been using roads to ship our vehicles to Bangladesh. We noticed some problems at the border areas near Bangladesh. We sought help from the Shipping Minister and Gadkari suggested us to use the coastal shipping services route. Our team worked with P Raveendran, Chairman of Chennai Port, and in less than a month they have arranged to use the sea route to ship our trucks to Bangladesh,” according to Vinod Dasari, Managing Director, Ashok Leyland.
The company plans to continue using sea route to export its trucks to Bangladesh.
Overall, Ashok Leyland exports about 12,000 trucks to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka every year.
The volumes to these countries are expected to increase by 80 per cent every year, the release said.
Union Minister Radhakrishnan highlighted that in June 2015, Indian and Bangladesh governments agreed to use coastal services for trade, particularly for vehicles.
Advantage sea routeHe also said that coastal shipping services were being encouraged by the government for various benefits.
A year-ago, Hyundai shipped 800 cars on RoRo vessels from Chennai to Pipavav for local distribution. For coastal movement through RoRo vessels, 80 per cent concessions are provided.
Apart from lower cost-benefit, coastal shipping also reduces congestion on roads.
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.