The Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) has proposed to construct in the current fiscal an additional capacity of 2.09 lakh tonnes for storing food grains, up from the present 113 lakh tonnes.

Talking to Business Line , Mr B.B. Pattanaik, Chairman and Managing Director of CWC, said the additional capacity would be created in 11 states at an investment of Rs 78 crore.

Apart from this, CWC plans to build two multi-storeyed warehouses in Delhi and convert two godowns currently used by Food Corporation of India at Bamanheri (Uttar Pradesh) and Nabha (Punjab) into private freight terminals according to the present policy of the Railways Ministry, Mr Pattanaik said.

Land customs station

The corporation has also proposed to set up a land customs station at Ghojadanga in West Bengal, for which 17 acres of land valued at Rs 1.1 crore has been identified. “West Bengal Government is to acquire the land and hand it over to CWC, and we've already paid 50 per cent of the land cost to the State Government,” Mr Pattanaik added.

In 2010-11, CWC achieved record profit before tax at Rs 203.73 crore against Rs 163.88 crore in the previous year, more than 24 per cent growth on a turnover of Rs 1,029.55 crore (Rs 987.95 crore).

Mr Pattanaik attributed this growth to construction of new capacity of 1.45 lakh tonnes during the year and improvement of occupancy to 88 per cent (85 per cent).

In 2010-11, CWC handled 10 per cent more containers at 12.32 lakh twenty-ft equivalents or TEUs (11.21 lakh TEUs). Throughput of its 272 container trains running between the inland container depots at Loni (Ghaziabad) and several west-coast ports, such as Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Mundra and Pipava, at 25,562 TEUs yielded a record revenue of Rs 51.55 crore. It also handled 1.76 lakh trucks at the truck terminal at Petrapole (West Bengal) on the India-Bangladesh border and earned a revenue of Rs 2.95 crore during 20-10-11, Mr Pattanaik said.

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