CONCOR said it has cut empty container handling charges only at Dronagiri terminal

“We revised the empty handling charges only at our terminal at Dronagiri which was in the range of Rs6,000 for 20 ft and Rs9,000 for 40 ft containers. We have brought that down, and the reason was at present we have very miniscule empty inventories at the Dronagiri facility. We are intending that with this reduction in empty container handling charges at Dronagiri, we will get lot of business, lot of empty containers will come,” Sanjay Swarup, Chairman and Managing Director, told analysts during a post second quarter financial results conference call on 30 October.

“At all other terminals, the empty container handling charges remain the same. We have not reduced it,” Swarup stated. The Dronagiri terminal located close to Jawaharlal Nehru Port – India’s second busiest container gateway – hardly contributes to one percent of CONCOR’s volumes.

“At present, the impact (of the reduction in empty container handling charges at Dronagiri terminal) is zero. There is no impact at all because we are yet to receive empty containers from shipping lines at the Dronagiri terminal,” Swarup said. “We are expecting in the next 10-15 days, the shipping lines will be using this facility, then we will get some revenue. We were not getting any revenue, now at least we will get some revenue. So, it will be a gain for the company, not a loss for the company. It will be a gain for the company that from zero revenue we are going to get some revenue,” the CMD said.

For the last one year, CONCOR is giving customers a discount of 25 percent on the movement of empty containers from gateway ports to inland container depots in the hinterland. “This was done to promote exports, and we were offsetting this concession through some charges that we had at the terminals. We are continuing with those charges, so there is no loss of margins on that account. And because of the increased empty container movement at our terminals due to these concessions, we were getting additional exports. So, it was additional income for the company, that is quite evident in our numbers also. We have increased our market share, but we have not sacrificed our margins. We don’t believe in sacrificing our margins to gain market share… We evacuate containers from the ports immediately; the dwell time is less than 30 hours whereas the dwell time of our competitors is 30 days. So, there is a huge gap between service levels. The customer is willing to pay more to get good service,” Swarup added.