Road movement to Nepal derailed

The five-month-long Madhesi agitation in Nepal that ended in February has had a negative impact on Indian road transporters with cargo moving to rail.

Besides supplying over $4 billion worth of goods, India routes another $3 billion of third-country imports to the land-locked Himalayan kingdom.

Madhesi agitators had blocked the main Raxaul (India)-Birgunj (Nepal) trade route last year, affecting truck movement. Supply of liquid fuel was hit hardest. But there was no disruption in the rail movement to the Container Corporation (Concor) operated Himalayan Terminal at Birgunj.

The result is Nepalese importers are now prefer the rail route. According to Vishnu Chaudhary, CEO of Himalayan Terminal, rail traffic has moved up by nearly 32 per cent this fiscal ending on July 16.

“A good part of the road cargo shifted to rail,” he said anticipating the trend to sustain in the longer term.

The terminal received 713 rakes last fiscal, up from of 524 in the previous year. Of the total, 325 rakes include containerised third-party import cargo (from Kolkata and Haldia port) handled by Concor. Break-bulk (like sugar, fertiliser) and iron and steel (which are moved in open carriage), are handled by the Indian Railways. Containerised cargo increased by 27 per cent, break-bulk by 16 per cent and iron and steel by a sharp 60 per cent.

SP Singh, Coordinator of the Indian Foundation for Transport Research and Training, agrees that the shift will pinch the truckers. However, he thinks the shift should help the governments especially in Nepal as tax leakage is low in rail movement.

With increased cargo, both the Railways and Concor are doing their best to improve rake availability. The Birgunj terminal is now receiving 150-160 rakes a month.

Over the last one year, the transit time from Kolkata to Birgunj (a distance of 700 km) for third-country import cargo is down to three days from seven days earlier.

Change is also happening at the container handling facility at the Kolkata Port. Investment in reach-stackers brought down the loading time of a rake to 15 hours from 24 hours. A ₹50-crore project will be launched this month to improve track capacity at the dock.

Port sources hopeful that these moves will reduce the turnaround time of containers to 14 days, as stipulated by the shipping liners. Currently Nepalese importers pay a penalty for delays in returning the empty containers.