The Hindu Business Line : Bank guarantee for box movement by domestic liners cut to 15 pc

The thrust of the 10th Plan in the port sector, according to Mr R.K. Jain, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Shipping, would be directed not so much towards creation of additional capacity through construction of new berths. Much greater emphasis would be laid on the improvement of productivity.

KOLKATA, Jan. 24

THE bank guarantee which is required to be submitted by the Indian shipping lines in respect of movement of containers has been brought down to 15 per cent from 25 per cent and the scope for a further reduction is being examined.

Giving this information here on Thursday, Mr Atul Sinha, Additional Commerce Secretary, said the Bongirwar Committee on the transhipment issue, which submitted its report recently, suggested that the present exemption given to the Container Corporation of India and Central Warehousing Corporation in the matter of furnishing bank guarantees might also be extended to all public sector undertakings including the Shipping Corporation of India.

Addressing the SCOPE-Shipping meeting as its Chairman, Mr Sinha further pointed out that consolidation/reworking of LCL (less than container load) cargo at gateway ports or at CFSs (container freight stations) near gateway ports had been allowed.

Also, as per the procedure, the immediate duty drawback claims for cargo transhipped from inland container depots (ICDs) and CFSs were being granted in the case of coastal cargo for exports.

"I would like to inform that the Ministry of Finance has issued a circular on January 17, 2002, wherein Customs Commissioners have been directed to prescribe 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year working hours for Customs in relation to supervision of movement of cargo at the gates of the docks'', he said adding, "after this, no overtime fee should be levied for supervision of movement of cargo at the gates''.

Expressing concern at the sluggish growth of exports, Mr Sinha said India's share in the world trade on the export side had been in the range of a meagre 0.6 per cent. Hence, the Government's immediate objective was to work out an export strategy where it should be possible to push up the figure to at least one per cent within two to three years.

The issue of development of Special Economic Zones was reviewed a few days ago at the top level and a market access initiative was proposed to be undertaken to assist the industry in export promotion activities including research and development, market research and the setting up of warehousing and retail marketing infrastructure in select countries, Mr Sinha added.

One way to achieve higher productivity would be through rationalisation of workforce particularly in old ports such as Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai. In the past two years, the size of the workforce in major ports had been reduced by more than 13,000, a large number of them through VRS. The fixation of retirement age at 58 years from 60 years too would force many to go early.

The cargo throughput, as he said, in major ports in the current financial year was unlikely to exceed 300 million tonnes against the capacity of about 344 m.t. In 2000-01 also, the throughput at 270 m.t. was less than the capacity of 280 m.t.

Besides, nearly Rs 4,500 crore of new investments in the major ports and another Rs 3,000 crore in the private ports were at various stages of implementation, thus obviating the need for any more investments.

Mr D.T. Joseph, Director-General of Shipping, explained the Section 407(1) of the Indian Merchant Shipping Act to emphasise that there were no restriction on Indian ship owners or Indian companies operating on the coasts, either with the help of its own vessels or with the chartered ones. The restriction was in force only with foreign ship owners using foreign flags, he said, adding that the foreign ship owners would face no restriction if they turn to Indian ports as hub ports.

A large number of representatives from the Commerce Ministry, Shipping Ministry, shipping lines, shippers' associations, major port trusts, customs and other organisations participated in the day-long deliberations covering a wide variety of issues.

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Bank guarantee for box movement by domestic liners cut to 15 pc