Poor connectivity, growing congestion cast shadow over Chennai Port's future

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on September 27, 2011:

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/Poor-connectivity-growing-congestion/317995.html

CHENNAI: With the connectivity projects in a comatose state for the past several years and the inventory of containers growing day by day, exim traders have warned that if the state of affairs continues for few more months, it would definitely affect the future of famed Chennai Port.

According to export-import industry sources, most of the private players using the Chennai Port for exporting or importing their goods (in containers) for years have started moving their cargo to other ports as backlog has hit their trade very badly and presented them in poor light among their European customers for failing to fulfil commitments.

“The situation has become so bad for us in the recent months that a few well-known shipping lines orally told our agents that they will not be visiting Chennai Port to load containers due to increased anchorage timings,” Vijayakumar, an exporter from Pollachi, told Express.

As a classic example of the ongoing delay at the Port, a Malaysia-based scientist and researcher of organic fertilizer, P Raja, flew down to Chennai few days ago after his cargo, a raw material for making fertilizer, was stuck up at the port for a month.

“My cargo (in container) could have reached Malaysia about two weeks ago but it has been lying at the Chennai Port due to these connectivity and evacuation problems. The delay has questioned my credibility in front of the Malaysian government, to whom I was distributing them,” said Raja.

“The Chennai Port management has to act swiftly to clear the backlog of containers piled up at both the container terminals or else it will affect the Christmas as well as New Year shipments to European countries,” R Muthukrishnan, president of Inter-State Container Transport Owners Association, told Express.

According to industry insiders, due to poor connectivity and transportation, traders who use to send about 40-50 containers every month are now forced to reduce it to 10 containers.

Though the whole fault of being poor in connectivity falls on the Chennai Port Trust management, they, instead of rectifying the problem to improve their revenue, have started collecting hefty congestion fee of about Rs 13,000 per container from exporters and importers, lamented Prakash, another exporter.

For many traders, that amount was equal to their profit margin and giving it to the Chennai Port meant no business and only loss, he added.

If the same situation continued, the Chennai Port might lose its importance of being the country’s eastern gateway in another two years, warned the traders.

To end the impasse at the port, the traders have appealed to the Union Shipping Minister G K Vasan to solve the perennial problem of connectivity and timely movement of cargo, which could dry up the Chennai Port soon if not addressed properly.