Strike ends at Mumbai's GTI container terminal

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Contract workers at a port in Mumbai have called off their nearly a week-long strike that backed up more than 25,000 containers of commodities such as sugar, pulses and rapeseed meal.

Loading and unloading ground to a halt due to the strike called by contract workers demanding permanent employment at the Gateway Terminals of India (GTI), one of the three terminals of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) that handles 60 percent of India's container cargo.

The GTI terminal is operated by the world's leading shipping company Maersk and Container Corporation of India.

"Although we couldn't meet their demand as of now, we sympathetically listened to their concerns and assured them to look into the matter," a senior port official, who is not authorised to talk to media, told Reuters on phone from Mumbai.

A number of cargoes were diverted to the Pipavav port in the western state of Gujarat and Sri Lanka's Colombo port due to the congestion at JNPT, which is also known as Nhava Sheva.

"My 200 containers of sugar meant for Afghanistan via Karachi (in Pakistan) were stuck at the port so I'm relieved to know that the strike has come to an end," said Mohan Narang, head of New Delhi-based trading company K S Commodities.

(Reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj, additional reporting by Keith Wallis in SINGAPORE, editing by William Hardy)