It will also buy five additional
second-hand container ships to enhance cargo handling capacity, an official
press release said. On an immediate basis, capacity will be enhanced by 9,000 twenty-foot
equivalent units (TEUs).
Commerce & Industry
Minister Piyush Goyal held an inter-ministerial meeting in New Delhi on
Thursday 19 Sep Union to address rising
freight cost, shipping delays, shortage & non-availability of containers, and
congestion at ports, leading to difficulties that exporters face. These
adversely impact trade.
Addressing the meeting, Goyal said that the decisions taken by the
Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways and the Ministry of Railways in the
meeting will result in significantly breaking down shipping costs, improving
availability of containers, resolving empty containers issue, faster evacuation
of export consignments, and reducing congestion at the
ports. He announced that Container
Corporation of India (Concor) has decided to allow empty containers to be
stored for a period of 90 days in the yard at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port
Authority (JNPA) free of cost and has also slashed the loading and handling
charges significantly.
Railway Board chairman & CEO Satish Kumar said that the charge of Rs
3,000, that is levied beyond 90 days, is now reduced to Rs 1,500. Further, the
storage and handling rates will be reduced for containers from Rs 9,000 to Rs
2,000 (for a 40-foot container) and from Rs 6,000 to Rs 1,000 (for a 20-foot
container).
Goyal urged all stakeholders to make concerted efforts to significantly
mitigate the difficulties, address the issues faced by the exporters,
effectively deploy multi-disciplinary capabilities, and adopt the ‘whole of the
government’ approach to ensure that no logistic difficulty is faced by the
exporters. Due to the current
geopolitical tensions, Red Sea Crisis, Houthi operations, ongoing wars and its
impact on international trade, there is a need to engage with a
multidisciplinary team, he said.
At the end of the meeting, the
representatives of exporters led by Federation of Indian Export Organizations
(FIEO) expressed satisfaction with the present availability of containers. They said that the immediate steps being taken by the government would
result in significantly easing the congestion, delay and freight hike, and
would enhance the space availability on the outgoing container ships, the
release said.