The public sector Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) is setting up its second container freight station (CFS) at Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNP) near Mumbai.
CIDCO has already allotted land to CWC and the payment will be made soon.
The cost of acquiring the 16 hectares of land is about Rs 30 crore. Another Rs 30 to 40 crore will be pumped into the construction of the CFS, which is expected to be ready in 18 months.
The container freight station is also likely to function as a customs bonded warehouse.
CWC already owns a container freight station at Dronagiri Node near JNP which handles export containers and manages the CFS owned by the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, which handles import containers.
Besides, it owns a custom bonded warehouse at Kalamboli, 22 kilometres from JNP.
CWC is going in for this additional container freight station keeping in view the expected increase in cargo at JNP. It will be situated only 1.5 kms away from the Dronagiri Node container freight station. It will be able to handle about 10,000 Teus of export and import containers per month, according to CWC regional manager J V Bendre.
JNP is Indias hi-tech port with vast acres of land at its disposal which will facilitate the setting up of more container freight stations.
It is widely rergarded as Indias port of the future.
CWC currently operates 14 container freight stations and inland clearance depots all over the country.
Containers are destuffed and stuffed at inland clearance depots and container freight stations.
Besides, customs examination facilities are also provided at these points.
Some of the container freight stations and inland clearance depots are located at Adalaj, Mumbai, Calcutta, Navi Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi.
The company is planning to inaugurate five more by the end of March. These are located at Varanasi, Nasik, Udaipur, Kota and New Mangalore.
CWC has also received the inter-ministerial committees clearance for setting up more such facilities at Raipur, Haldia, Saharanpur, Allahabad, Siliguri and Waluj.
Proposals to start addtional container freight stations at Tuticorin, Rajkot, Goa and Ludhiana are awaiting clearance from the inter-ministerial committee.
CWCs plans include the setting up of cold storages at Agartala, Vizag, Hazipur, Calcutta and Bangalore.
Plans are also afoot to set up a container storage yard at Petropol in the Ind0-Bangladeesh border and a container cum truck storage yard at Muasapet in Hyderabad.
The entire expansion plan will be funded by internal accruals, according to Bendre.
CWC had made a net profit of Rs 61 crore in 1995-96.
However, figures regarding turnover and internal accruals were not immediately available.
CWC currently runs a chain of 1800 warehouses, inland clearance depots, container freight stations and air cargo complexes all over the country.
It also plans to float a tender soon for the calling for sub contractors to manage its container freight station at Dronagiri Node.
The current agreement with Natvar Parikh Industries(NPIL) is due to lapse by the middle of 1997. Last year it was involved in a row with NPIL regarding the money to be paid per TEU.
At one point NPIL had threatened to cancel the agreement but finally backed out.
