Too many strikes at Chennai container terminal hits trade

Chennai, July 1: 'Brand India' image has taken a severe beating in view of frequent industrial unrest at Chennai's only container terminal, resulting in delayed shipments, according to traders, who want expeditious steps for setting up two more container terminals at Chennai Port Trust and Ennore Port.

Speaking to the media here last evening along with representatives of Chambers, Chennai Custom House Agents' Association President V Upendran said 14 strikes in the last three years had affected traders very severely.

Every time there was labour unrest at Chennai Container Terminal Limited (CCTL), the burden was passed on to trade, they said, adding, with the latest stir that ended on June 29 lasting nearly 14 days, feeder operators had imposed a surcharge of 30 US dollars a TEU (twenty foot equivalent unit) from June 24.

'Trade had to pay about Rs 25 lakh per day as congestion surcharge, in addition to the financial burden, running to crores of rupees due to production losses, cancellation of orders and diversion costs for rerouting the consignments through other ports'.

There should be a scientific method for levying surcharges and also a legal framework for passing on surcharge to the trade.

Owing to this shipments were delayed and credibility of traders took a beating in the international market. 'When the shipments get delayed, we cannot place future orders', Mr Upendran said.

Though CCTL had maintained that movement of containers was not hit by the stir, the traders alleged that the movement was very slow as it came down to 20 TEUs per hour from 80. CCTL was enjoying the monopoly and was not taking adequate steps to prevent future stirs.

In this context, the traders demanded immediate steps for setting up a container terminal at the Chennai Port Trust (CPT) and another, larger one at Ennore to complement the CCTL.

'Tenders were called two years back for the second terminal at CPT but the financial bids were not called', the traders said and demanded revisiting the concession agreement between CCTL and CPT with a provision for benchmarking the terminal's productivity.

Mr S Raghavan, President, Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry, R Asokan, Joint Director, Federation of Indian Export Organisations, S Santhanam, President, Tamil Chamber of Commerce, Ashok Thakkar, President, Hindustan Chamber of Commerce, J Krishnan, Committee Member and R Subramanian, Secretary-General of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry were among those who spoke.

UNI