Chennai Trade Recovery: Shipping liners pulled up

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on November 01, 2011:

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/CTR-Shipping-liners-pulled-up/328617.html

CHENNAI: Toughening its stand in the face of continuing collection of Chennai Trade Recovery (CTR) surcharge, the Chennai Port Trust issued show-cause notices to two shipping liners for their illegal act.

According to port trust sources, in a high-level meeting on Monday evening, it has been decided to send show cause notices to two liners for collecting congestion surcharge from traders when there was no congestion in the port.
Besides, the notices— that could create ripple among all the shipping liners who have been collecting exorbitant CTR surcharge from importers and exporters— the port trust management is also mulling a legal recourse to fix the issue at once.
With the issuance of notices that could jeopardise those liners’ priority berthing options at the port, there are enough indications from shipping liners’ side that the CTR surcharges could soon be withdrawn.
Meanwhile, Chozha Naachiar, president of Tamil Chamber of Commerce and one of the trustees in the Chennai Port Trust, has appealed to the shipping lines and feeder operators to withdraw the CTR immediately.
The Tamil Chamber also requested the Port Trust to give priority berthing only to those who are not charging congestion surcharge.
On the same note, Hindustan Chamber of Commerce  president Nimish C Tolia said, “...We will also be constrained to advise our members to boycott all such shipping lines.”