CONTAINER CORPORATION OF INDIA

Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) was incorporated in March 1988 as a public enterprise under the Ministry of Railways. Since its inception CONCOR has worked to facilitate multi-modal transport logistics and infrastructure to support the country's growing international trade, as well as to encourage containerised cargo movement within the country.

With an average growth rate of 20%, CONCOR has separate transit warehousing facilities for import-export cargo and bonded warehousing, which allows the importer to store import cargo and take partial deliveries.

The Corporation provides transport linkage between ports and the hinterland. With the movement of containerised cement coming down, due to the major role played by railways, CONCOR is now looking out for other segments particularly non-bulk traffic, as it is anticipated that non-bulk traffic will go up from 35% to 50% by the year 2010.

Recently the Corporation has purchased high-speed flat wagons with the US $ 94 million World Bank loan. Capable of moving at a speed of 100 kms per hour, with superior characteristics like automatic twist locks, low beds through reduced wheel diameter and draw base, the wagons are expected to reduce transit time between ports and the hinterland.

Rajneesh Kumar, Deputy General Manager, CONCOR, spoke to www.chennaibest.com on the activities of CONCOR and its plans.

With exim traffic ever on the increase, the percentage of containerisation all over the globe is high; to an extent of more than 70%. In India, it is in the range of 30% to 35%, whereas it was only 15% some 10 years ago. In this improved scenario CONCOR plays a major role in the transit of containers from ports to the hinterland. Up to a distance of 400 to 500 kms the containers are moved by road. Beyond this distance, it is on rails, as all the terminals are rail-linked. Moreover, the Corporation plays a major role in ensuring safe delivery of goods to the consignees.

The mode of transportation is on rails or road. Both must be complementary to each other. But in India, the containers are moved by road only for a short distance. This is because the roads in our country are in a pretty bad shape, crying for infrastructure attention. Because of this situation, it has become unsafe to move the containers by road, as they are prone to accidents. It will be profitable for the railways only in the case of bulk movement of containers. It cannot be denied that movement by road has an advantage where the containers can be delivered at the doorstep of the consignees. This is not possible in the case of rails as the only option left is to pick it up from terminals.

The level is quite satisfactory. On an average Chennai terminals receive 1300 to 1700 containers per month in the domestic sector. On the international segment the terminals receive on an average 1000 import loads and about 400 to 500 export loads per month. Similarly, about 1200 containers are transited from port to hinterland every month and vice versa.

In the export segment the major products are garments, machinery, paper, stones, tyres, coffee and tobacco. On the domestic segment the major incoming product is food grain and the outgoing products are iron pipes, steel pipes, rubber, groundnut and cotton.

At present transportation of containers by road is about 55%, as against 45% on rails. Immediately after independence the break-up was 20% and 80% respectively. But volume of goods transported on rails is more compared to roads, which is 450 million tonne per annum.But in the case of developed countries, about 75% of containers are moved by road and 25% by rail. Steps must be taken to transport more goods by roads in the near future.

If the car movement is through vessels, then the role of the Corporation is limited. If the cars are to be transported through containers, CONCOR offers its service, because as per norms our activities are restricted only to transit of containers from ports to hinterland. On request from port authorities, we transport the cars from terminals to port and load it on the vessel.

The main problem is the heavy congestion in Chennai port. The frequent strikes at the port results in detention of containers; posing serious problems to the consignees. Moreover, the slow movement from Inland Containers Depots (ICDs) by rail and the port involving itself in household handling and delivery of goods has further worsened the situation.

The port must have a proper update of the incoming and outgoing containers on computers. The road transport system for shifting and outward movement of containers must be made fast. Further, the port authorities must insist on efficient handling of equipment.

There are two terminals at Chennai - Tondiarpet and Harbour. At Tondiarpet, we have the facilities to handle domestic containers and household equipment, booking of empty containers, stacking facilities and handling of international and over dimension containers. There are two paved warehouses of 50,000 sq. ft. each for bonding and stacking of export-import cargo. In addition to these, two more warehouses of 50,000 sq.ft. each for domestic operations, has been sanctioned. This is supplemented with 10 lifters, 3 cranes, one magnetic crane and a security network. The terminal has also a way bridge and diesel pumps for road transporters. At Harbour, the main facility available is road and rail movement of containers. In the future we plan to enter into logistics consulting to pick up business partners and handle refrigerated containers.

The main problem confronting this segment is that a perfect multi-modal transportation system has not been evolved. No logistics solution is provided to the customers because the other sectors like shipping and road are disorganised. The red-tapism attitude of the Government has further compounded the problem. Further, good co-ordination between CONCOR and the road segment is lacking. It has to be complementary and not competitive. As a result, we are not able to give economic results to our customers. Another problem is that the port in Chennai is not properly connected through rails, despite the volume of containers moving out of the port shooting up by 250%. This has resulted in a lot of detention on the exim trade front and it takes 24 hours for the containers to move out of Chennai port, whereas it takes only four to five hours in Mumbai.

The main area CONCOR will now concentrate on is non-bulk movement, which is expected to go up from 30% to 35% by the year 2010. Domestic traffic was given an impetus by the opportunity that CONCOR got to meet the surplus demand for cement transportation when the Indian Railways was unable to meet its committed traffic. The Corporation developed and procured a large number of side access 20 ft containers to carry cement and other commodities between non-CONCOR terminals. The year 1997-98 marked a watershed in the Corporation's domestic traffic, when the very character of this traffic underwent a sea change. Movement of containerised cement came down significantly due to easy availability of railway wagons. CONCOR began to look for other segments, and found its niche market for piecemeal general goods cargo, hitherto moved by road.

Address: CONCOR Inland Container Depot,
Sathangadu, Tiruvottiyur, Chennai - 600 019.
Phone: 595 0381/83/393.

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