SCI to buy 5 container ships, enhance capacities

Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) has announced that it will charter container ships to significantly increase the container capacities. It will also buy five additional second-hand container ships to enhance cargo handling capacity, an official press release said. On an immediate basis, capacity will be enhanced by 9,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).

Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal held an inter-ministerial meeting in New Delhi on Thursday Union to address rising freight cost, shipping delays, shortage & non-availability of containers, and congestion at ports, leading to difficulties that exporters face. These adversely impact trade.

Addressing the meeting, Goyal said that the decisions taken by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways and the Ministry of Railways in the meeting will result in significantly breaking down shipping costs, improving availability of containers, resolving empty containers issue, faster evacuation of export consignments, and reducing congestion at the ports.

He announced that Container Corporation of India (Concor) has decided to allow empty containers to be stored for a period of 90 days in the yard at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) free of cost and has also slashed the loading and handling charges significantly.

Railway Board chairman & CEO Satish Kumar said that the charge of Rs 3,000, that is levied beyond 90 days, is now reduced to Rs 1,500. Further, the storage and handling rates will be reduced for containers from Rs 9,000 to Rs 2,000 (for a 40-foot container) and from Rs 6,000 to Rs 1,000 (for a 20-foot container).

Goyal urged all stakeholders to make concerted efforts to significantly mitigate the difficulties, address the issues faced by the exporters, effectively deploy multi-disciplinary capabilities, and adopt the ‘whole of the government’ approach to ensure that no logistic difficulty is faced by the exporters. Due to the current geopolitical tensions, Red Sea Crisis, Houthi operations, ongoing wars and its impact on international trade, there is a need to engage with a multidisciplinary team, he said.

At the end of the meeting, the representatives of exporters led by Federation of Indian Export Organizations (FIEO) expressed satisfaction with the present availability of containers. They said that the immediate steps being taken by the government would result in significantly easing the congestion, delay and freight hike, and would enhance the space availability on the outgoing container ships, the release said.