The NHAI announced exempting tankers and containers carrying liquid medical oxygen from user fee at toll plazas across national highways. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) today announced exempting tankers and containers carrying liquid medical oxygen (LMO) from user fee at toll plazas across national highways. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in a statement issued today has said that in order to provide uninterrupted passage for tankers and containers carrying Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) across National Highways, the user fee for such vehicles at toll plazas has been exempted as the country is battling a surge in covid-19 cases in the country. These containers carrying Liquid Medical Oxygen will be treated at par with other emergency vehicles such as ambulances for a period of two months or till further orders. “Although the toll plazas have nearly zero waiting time after implementation of FASTag, National Highways Authority of India is already providing priority passage to such vehicles for quick and seamless transportation of medical oxygen. Instructions have also been issued by NHAI to all its officials and other stakeholders to assist the government and private efforts to fight the pandemic in helping them in pro-active manner,” said a statement issued by the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways.

Adani Group has secured medical oxygen and transportable cryogenic containers as well as augment health infrastructure. The Adani Group has already procured 48 cryogenic tanks capable of carrying 780 tonnes of liquid oxygen across the nation, a group spokesperson said. The Adani Group is ramping up its efforts in India’s battle against the pandemic. “As soon as the second COVID wave hit India, the Adani Group began leveraging its overseas connections to procure hard-to-find supplies of critical essentials like medical oxygen and transportable cryogenic containers,” the spokesperson said. It procured 48 cryogenic tanks from leading manufacturers in countries like Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and UAE. While some of these large cryogenic tanks were shipped in through the group’s Mundra Port in Gujarat, others were airlifted into the country with the help of the Indian Air Force, which deployed its biggest transport aircraft for these time-critical operations. These cryogenic tanks are a vital addition to the hardware India sorely needed to manage the medical oxygen requirements of patients across the country.

CargoTalk is organizing its fifth conclave on May 18, 2021. With eminent speakers from the trade, the focus will be on supply chain complexities in a never normal world. The summit will discuss the congestion issue the industry is currently facing and using real-time visibility to combat the port congestion disruptions. As this port congestion continues to cause downstream effects throughout the supply chain, industry is looking for insight into how delays will impact their shipments so they can remain agile and adjust plans as needed. Speakers will include Samit Datta, Head, Global Supply Chain, IT, Digital Transformation & Operational Excellence, Piramal Glass and Huseni Vohra, Director – Business Development, APAC, project44.

Airports Authority of India, Goa International Airport and its frontline corona warriors have been playing an active role to combat covid-19 by facilitating the seamless delivery of medical essentials. Goa International Airport has further strengthened its mission to tackle the unprecedented situation created by coviid-19 by seamless supply of medical essentials i.e., Covid vaccines, Fabiflu medicines, covid-19 testing kits and other essentials. Goa Airport has facilitated the movement of Covid Vaccine to the state of Goa in the second phase of pandemic as part of Inbound Cargo and ensured the expeditious exit of consignments and handing over to the Health Authorities in shortest time possible. 1. 13 Boxes of Covid vaccine (COVISHIELD) received from Chennai on 18.04.2021. 2. 9 Boxes of Covid vaccine (COVISHIELD) received from Mumbai on 30.04.2021. 3. 122 Kg of Covid-19 Testing kits received from Delhi on 23.04.2021. In addition to inbound Cargo, Goa Airport has also played a crucial role in facilitating the supply of Glenmark’s Fabiflu medicines as part of Outbound Cargo to different parts of the country i.e., Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Indore, Nagpur etc. A total of 31,955 Kg of Fabiflu medicines flew from Goa Airport as part of outbound Cargo in the month of April, 2021. Fabiflu is used for the treatment of mild to moderate Covid infected people. Goa despite being smallest state is playing a significant role by being at the forefront in the fight against Covid-19 and Goa International Airport is working as gateway on 24×7 basis.

Delmos Aviation transported around 100 oxygen concentrators from Russia to New Delhi for the Government of Rajasthan. Delmos Aviation arranged for an end to end logistics supply for the Rajasthan Government and helped them with pre-buying formalities, legal documentation and clearance processes. Dr Naveen Rao, Director – Delmos Aviation, said, “We are proud to help the government in the procurement of oxygen concentrators in a short span of just three days. During this medical crisis, time-bound deliveries are very crucial. We will not leave any stone unturned to provide all possible support to the people of our country. We will keep on working hard to create new benchmarks. I would especially like to thanks the Aeroflot Cargo management team, Centurion Logistics and Moscow Cargo warehouse for prioritizing and expediting all the documentation needs, enabling a quick airlifting of the consignment.” A total of 1250 oxygen concentrators are ordered and will reach New Delhi in four lots of 100, 300, 450 and 400 units each. Apart from today, other lots will be arriving on 9th, 14th, and 16th May 2021. The consignment includes Oxygen Concentrator Single Flowmeter (0.5-10LPM Adjustable) and Oxygen Concentrator Dual Flowmeter (0-5LPM Adjustable). The models are JAY-10A & LFY-I-5A. “During this raging second wave of the pandemic, Rajasthan Government is working hard to procure essential medical equipment on the directions of Chief Minister, Ashok Gehlot and Health Minister, Raghu Sharma. As part of its efforts to augment the medical oxygen in the State, the government planned to import 1250 oxygen concentrators from Moscow, Russia, in collaboration with Delmos Aviation Pvt. Ltd”, said the official spokesperson.

Cathay Pacific Cargo has been operating freighters and cargo-only passenger flights, delivering to date more than 100 tonnes of much-needed humanitarian and medical supplies to some of India’s major centres. These include shipments of specialised oxygen generators, oxygen concentrators and ventilators to Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad. In addition, there has been a sharp increase in volumes for shipments of oxygen, surgical masks, sanitiser, personal protective equipment, pharmaceuticals and vaccines over the past few weeks. “The Cathay Pacific Group has a long standing relationship with India. We are pained to see the current impact of the pandemic in the country and understand the criticality of shipping essential medical supplies” Cathay Pacific Airways’ Regional General Manager- South Asia, Middle East and Africa, Mark Sutch said. “With an expansive global network, freighter operations as well as our ability to deploy ad-hoc Cargo-only-Passenger flights, we have been able to transport essential medical equipment to the Indian communities. Recently, we have also seen a sharp increase in demand from Americas and the Chinese mainland for space for humanitarian aid shipments to India and we are working closely with the Indian authorities to deploy additional capacity to accommodate these essential shipments.”

Owing to the healthcare emergency in the country, industrial usage of oxygen has been completely prohibited. Oxygen is an essential component for the repair and welding of damaged containers and due to the prohibition it cannot be availed for repairing damaged containers. There are thousands of empty import containers lying un-repaired. This has further added to the crisis of container shortage among the EXIM fraternity.The repair of containers has also got impacted due to a shortage of labours to handle the repair work. It has affected the movement of essential products, including daily needs and medical supplies. Along with oxygen, the major setback on the freight delays could be seen differently in different commodities.Also, the dwelling time for containers has almost doubled due to the rise of second wave globally. Earlier an average container dwelling time at the port for clearance ranged between 25-30 days but today with the second wave resulting in shortage in labourers, drivers, lack of space on vessels etc. has resulted in significant rise in the dwelling time which has go up to 45-50 days

J. M. Baxi has purchased oxygen cylinders for India, in which 600 will be for Delhi, 250 for Andhra Pradesh and 250 for Maharashtra. Totalling 7200 cubic meters of oxygen carrying capacity, it is being transported to India by the Indian Navy and Airforce.J. M. Baxi & Co is India’s premier ship agency, serving tramp and container vessels and finding maritime carriage solutions for all types of cargo.It is backed by over 600 experienced and committed professionals working from a nationwide network of offices in over 50 locations. J. M. Baxi & Co is the only ship agent in the world that does not subcontract out its core business.With a century of experience, they are the most reliable agency in India. With offices inall Indian ports and ICDs, we represent MLOSs, NVOsand feeder operators. Services pan-India include vessel husbanding, transportation support, EXIM marketing and surveys, and M&R services. The group’s infrastructure include CFSs, ICDs, terminals and rail services to ensure seamless support to the agency division.

The company posted ₹ 891 million profit after tax (previous year ₹ 238 million loss) for the quarter ended March 31, 2021 and ₹ 963 million profit after tax (previous year ₹ 383 million loss) for the year ended March 31, 2021. The profit for the year is, after absorbing the impact of special COVID-19 ex-gratia (₹ 342 million) paid to employees in September 2020 and accelerated depreciation of IT servers (₹ 240 million).The margin improvement is backed up by better realization and cost efficiencies during the year. Revenue from operations for the quarter ended March 31, 2021 stood at ₹ 9,662 million and ₹ 32,797 million for the year ended March 31, 2021.

http://cargobreakingnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/ceva.jpgCEVA Logistics continues to expand its range of ground and rail services from China to Europe, announcing today a new train-ferry service from Xi’an, China, to Immingham, U.K., as well as a premium offering on the company’s existing route from Xi’an to the Mukran (Sassnitz) port in Germany.It’s weekly multimodal train-ferry service from Xi’an to Immingham via Kaliningrad, Russia, will provide additional freight capacity for shippers amid unprecedented demand for transport and logistics services. The new route’s pilot shipment to Immingham left Xi’an by block train on March 18, going to Kaliningrad, where the cargo was reloaded the same day onto a ferry that arrived in Immingham on April 6. The pilot shipment for the new regular connection delivered 25 containers, including e-commerce goods with customs supervision code 9810. More trials will follow in May, with regular service starting by early June. CEVA’s aim for port-to-port delivery times is 18-20 days, with door-to-door delivery times not exceeding 25 days.CEVA Logistics also upgraded its express block train solution from Xi’an to Mukran. Since April 1, the existing regular connection to Duisburg, Germany, has also been operating a high-speed and high-security premium service every Thursday.