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| Using Kolkata port gets dearer |
| Bs Reporter / Kolkata Oct 14, 2009, 00:58 IST |
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After contending with falling draught, ineffectual infrastructure and severe congestion that have significantly affected trade, customers using the Kolkata port will now have to shell out a congestion surcharge to container shipping firms that service the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT)-administered facility.
From the middle of October, shipping lines will charge its customers between $ 225-250 per standard container to offset the costs incurred from increased waiting time at the Kolkata port. Substantially lowered draught in the navigational channels leading into the port and a breakdown in machinery for dispatching containers has almost doubled the turn-around time.
“We will impose a congestion surcharge of about $250 per container for inbound cargo from October 15. This is not a collective decision but one taken by individual firms,” an official from Bengal Tiger Line, a Singapore-based company that owns and operates feeder carriers and container vessels in India, said. KoPT said that it had received no such information from shipping lines and the operations remained normal.
The local agent of another Singapore-based company, Advance Container Lines, said that the firm would ask its customers to pay $225 per standard container from October 17. “This is applicable for both Kolkata and Haldia ports,” the official added.
“We are compelled to pass on the burden to our users. This surcharge will remain in place till the situation eases,” an official of a stevedoring firm that services international shipping lines, said. Local traders felt that additional charges would further impact the already reeling port-based import/export business. “The situation is not very good and the slowdown in the port’s functioning is adversely affecting us. This is a busy season and ultimately, we will have to pay,” Ramesh Agarwal of trading firm Pyare Lal and Sons said.
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