Category Archives: Shipping

To facilitate container truck movement from one bank to another, the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) is weighing the option of constructing a tunnel under the Hooghly River. This move could potentially free city roads of 700-800 trucks daily. Buoyed by the success of underwater tunnelling work for East-West Metro corridor, the KoPT, rechristened as the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, is planning to appoint a consultant to conduct a feasibility study for building a similar structure under the river. Meanwhile, speaking at a seminar organised by CII, Shipping Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said the Centre has waived off waterways charges. The Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) had levied the waterway usage charges at a rate of Rs 0.02 per gross registered tonnage (GRT) per km for inland cargo ships and Rs 0.05 for cruise vessels on national waterways.

Shipwaves has joined Maersk-IBM developed TradeLends platform to accelerate the digitisation of the ocean logistics space in India and the Middle East. Having recently allowed shipping bill of lading to be filed over a blockchain platform, India has been betting big on blockchain-enabled solutions to digitize its maritime supply chains. Along the same vein, TradeLens provides controlled, permissioned access to secure and immutable transportation documents while bringing together stakeholders such as shipping carriers, ports, customs offices, and other players in the ecosystem through its blockchain-led platform. Through this linkage, Shipwaves will be able to provide timely end-to-end supply chain visibility, secured sharing of digital shipping documents, and data directly from partners. This will enable the forwarder to improve efficiency and decrease operational costs by a significant margin. Additionally, the smart-contract based workflows will automate and digitise multi-party interactions, which will result in improved efficiency.

According to the latest data from the Indian Ports’ Association (IPA), container cargo in terms of TEUs (twenty foot equivalent unit) at India’s 12 major ports dropped 32.28 per cent to 1.74 million in the first quarter of the current fiscal. In terms of tonnage, the container cargo declined 30.11 per cent to 26.34 million tonnes (MT) in the quarter. These ports had handled containers to the tune of 2.57 million TEUs and 37.69 MT in terms of tonnage in the April-June period of the previous financial year. India has 12 major ports — Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Mormugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Kamarajar (Ennore), V O Chidambaranar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) — that handle about 61 percent of the country’s total cargo traffic.

While reviewing the development activities of Vallarpadam Terminal of Cochin Port, Mansukh Mandaviya, Minister of State for Shipping, Government of India, says, “We are developing the transshipment facility on the Indian port to ensure that the Indian cargo trans-ship through Indian port. Resolving various issues of Vallarpadam Terminal is one of the priorities of the Ministry of Shipping.” The Minister directed officials to chalk out the strategy to tackle the various challenges and actualize the vision of the transshipment hub of India and pioneer hub in South Asia. According to the statement issued by the ministry, “The Kochi International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT), locally known as the Vallarpadam Terminal, is located strategically on the Indian coastline. It successfully fulfills all the criteria which are needed to develop it as a transshipment hub.”

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) has achieved an another mile stone in development of SEZ by becoming the first-of-its-kind operational Port based multi-product SEZ. The port has announced that two units of its Special Economic Zone namely, OWS LLP and Krish Food Industry have completed their first phase of operational activity and are declared operational units by Development Commissioner, SEEPZ, SEZ. The port has been developing a multi-product Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in its freehold land of 277 hectares at Navi Mumbai. The SEZ aims to boost exports by enabling port-led industrialisation under the Sagarmala initiative of the Ministry of Shipping. The foundation stone of the project was laid by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi in August 2014. Sanjay Sethi, IAS, Chairman, JNPT, said, “For JNPT, this is truly a great occasion as JNPT becomes the first port where port-led economic development is evolving successfully. JNPT is confident of attracting leading global companies for making India a manufacturing hub as the infrastructure development underway in JNPT SEZ is as per the international benchmark. The potential units investment and the employment generation will give a boost to the entire eco-system around JNPT region.”

CEVA Logistics has launched an all-in-one portal named myCEVA to enable shippers in managing their complete shipping journey online. The online tool provides a seamless customer experience by giving them greater control over every function and a larger range of options whatever the circumstances. The portal has been designed to give customers greater control over the booking process while simultaneously improving efficiency through greater process automation. Customers can instantly receive quotes, make bookings and track shipments in real time, which will enhance the customer experience.   After a successful pilot phase in the US in May 2020, myCEVA is working towards covering all transport modes in every region of the world and has been launched in a phased manner with FCL and LCL ocean freight customers using specific trade lanes from/to the US, China and India.

Maersk’s customer-oriented mobile app witnesses highest usage amongst customers in India. With over 4,000 users, India topped the charts globally amongst the countries where Maersk’s customers are actively using the mobile app. Over 1.8 million actions by customers were recorded on the app in the second quarter of 2020 (April to June). These were more than double of those recorded in the first quarter of 2020 (January to March). These include any action performed by users on the app like booking, tracking, checking schedules, live support etc. “As the pandemic spread across geography, our, as well as most of our customers’ operations, shifted bases to their employees’ homes. It then became imperative for the customers to adopt the digital tools for carrying out businesses from the comforts of their homes. Having invested in digital transformation over the last few years, we could provide this immediately to our customers,” said, Steve Felder, Managing Director – South Asia, Maersk.

Adani Logistics has moved its first-ever containerised cargo export from India to Bangladesh utilising inland waterways and it has reached its destination Pangaon International Container Terminal, Dhaka on July 12, 2020. The success of landmark container export cargo consignment has provided importers and exporters of India and Bangladesh an alternative to roadways and railways. Currently, majority of the exports and imports through West Bengal region to Bangladesh is taking place through Petrapole (India) and Benapole (Bangladesh). In fact, Petrapole is one of the largest Land Customs Station (LCS) in Asia handling a trade of more than US$ 2.5 billion. “Since last year, our team is working on offering commercially viable logistics solutions using Inland Waterways. Previously, we have successfully completed the domestic containerised movement between Haldia – Patna on NW1 and Haldia – Guwahati on NW2 (using IBPR). The success of containerised movement from Haldia to Guwahati on NW2 (using IBPR) has generated keen interest with the importers/exporters of both India and Bangladesh to extend its usage for EXIM cargo movement. One vessel movement is equivalent to 64 or more trucks. Thus inland waterways provide a competitive alternative to current road based movement of goods through Petrapole ICP. Containerised movement of sponge iron is a safer alternative as compared to carrying the cargo in bulk/break bulk which has also been appreciated by industry.” says Anil Kishore Singh, CEO – Inland Waterways, Adani Logistics.

According to Mansukh Lal Mandaviya, Union Minister of State for Shipping, “By developing strategic Chabahar Port in Iran, India will reduce logistics cost by 20 per cent in container transport to CIS countries, bypassing China or Europe.” He explains, “So far, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries could be reached only via China or Europe. There was no other connectivity with CIS countries. Chabahar port, located in the Sistan-Balochistan province at energy-rich Iran’s southern coast, lies outside the Persian Gulf and is easily accessed from India’s western coast, bypassing Pakistan.” “In a strategic development, loading and unloading of cargo has started at Chabahar Port. CIS countries include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan. Now, we have developed Chabahar port and there is direct connectivity to these countries via Afghanistan,” the minister said. “Transshipment of cargo started last week at Chabahar Port,” he adds. “Chabahar Port is scaling up its operations drastically. India Ports Global terminal loaded 76 TEUs (twenty foot equivalent unit) all refrigerated for India. This is record single loading and is a milestone in growth path of Chabahar Port,” he said.

The Kolkata Port Trust, now renamed as Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Port, has decided to rejuvenate its Kidderpore Docks (KPD) at an estimated expenditure of Rs 186 crore through Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode. The rejuvenation programme will be implemented in KPD-I West, one of the four parts of the KPD, and it will help increase its cargo handling capacity by four to five times. The programme will work on Build-Equip-Operate- Transfer basis for a period of 30 years and the bidder who will pay the highest revenue to the port will be the new operator. “The project will be implemented in two phases. It is expected to yield 2.5 million tonne of cargo per annum in phase-1. In phase-2, three more berths shall be developed and capacity addition of 1.5 million tonne per annum is expected,” informs, Vinit Kumar, Chairman, Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Port.