Shift in contractors hits Nagpur ICD

Fall in the quality of service coupled with a breakdown of ICD's transportation mechanism pushes up clients costs.

A change in contractors at Container Corporation of India Limited's (Concor's) Nagpur ICD has seen it lose business owing to lack of adequate equipment to handle container traffic.

The Nagpur ICD was once the fastest growing inland container depot in the country leading Concor to carve a central region in its network with Nagpur as headquarters. The central region of Concor covers the capital of Chhattisgarh, Raipur besides, Bhusaval and Aurangabad, in Maharashtra.

The unloading and loading operation of a container rake which normally takes under five hours, are now taking between 18 and 30 hours at the Nagpur ICD. Cargo movement, from the ICD to an importer's unit and to the ICD from an exporter's unit has come to a virtual standstill.

Clients have been advised to make transport arrangements themselves leading to a significant increase in cost for importers and exporters. Concor's official handling and transport contractors, who generally have a fleet of around 60 to 70 trailers to handle container traffic between the ICD and importers/exporters units, charge Rs 4,500 for each container they handle at the ICD and later transport to the customer's doorstep. The cost of hiring a trailer is around Rs 7,000.

Custom house and shipping line agents are up in arms against what they term as an "entirely avoidable failure" on the part of Concor which is causing containers to pile up at the ICD. "They don't have equipment here and they knew very well in advance that this would happen," said angry agents at the ICD.

They claimed that business, they had worked hard to wean away from other modes of transport, was being lost due to the slow movement of containers at the depot. "Rice from Gondia is all but gone. They are now despatching it to Mumbai from Gondia by regular goods wagon trains. Exporters can't afford to keep containers stacked at the ICD when no solution is imminent," the agents charged.

Officers from Indo Rama Synthetics (India) held a meeting with their cargo handling agents and later with top officials of Concor urging them to help move containers from the ICD as well as from their unit. "We need the material that we have imported and cannot now purchase a fleet of trucks to haul it to our unit at Butibori," an exasperated official of Indo Rama said.

Agents said that Indo Rama had complained that it would have suspend some operations if the petrochemicals it had imported did not reach their unit in time. The delays seem to have started last month and intensified in the past four to five days.

At the root of the problem is the transport and handling contract given by Concor to two different parties. The old contactor of nine years, M Kandla Cargo Handlers, have been awarded the contract of transportation of containers which includes ferrying containers between the ICD and units of importers and exporters. The contract for handling containers has been won by M Maruti Transport, a new entrant in the ICD.

This is the first time that the transport and handling work has been segregated and awarded to two different contactors. Kandla Cargo has objected to this segregation and reportedly claimed that it bid for both the works and not one part alone. The operation, Kandla Cargo is learnt to have said, was no longer viable for it if the two works were segregated.

Maruti Transport was apprised of it winning the bid in April and given time till mid-April to start operations. However, the company has not been able to bring adequate specialised handling equipment here leading to delay of container clearance at the ICD.

When contacted, Chief General Manager, D K Tripathi agreed that container movement had been impacted but maintained that the delay in unloading and loading a rake was not as much as claimed by the agents. "The operation took around 18 hours but the situation is improving," he said. Tripathi said that the segregation of transport and handling work had saved Concor crores of rupees. "We haven't done anything out of what was mentioned in the tender document," he claimed and said the new contractor, Maruti Transport, was arranging for equipment from abroad.

"These are not machines that be repaired or bought locally. They are being imported from Sweden and have landed at Mumbai. They should be here in four days after which they will be assembled and tested in two days," he said, referring to the massive reach stackers deployed in loading and unloading containers from rakes.

Maruti Transport has one reach stacker at the ICD which, agents claimed, breaks down pretty often. The contactor also has one fork lift and some cranes. These are proving to be grossly inadequate to handle the containers brought in by six rakes operated by Concor in the Raipur-Nagpur-Mumbai circuit.

Tripathi said the problem was being dealt with and after the rake waiting in the yard had been handled, there would be a breather as other incoming rakes have been deliberately delayed for two to three days.

He said Concor would find ways to waive the extra charges that custom house and shipping line agents were being forced to bear for want of proper evacuating facilities.

"If the failure is on our part, we will have to bear the charges," he said. Tripathi said adhoc arrangements were being made so that enough trailers were available for transportation of containers.