The Hindu Business Line : Kolkata Dock System banks on rail link to boost box traffic

KOLKATA Dock System (KDS) is hopeful of a significant jump in the container throughput in the current financial year (2003-04). This will be possible because of the rail links being established with the container terminals of the Netaji Subhas Dock under KDS. Once the rail links are in place by the middle of May, KDS will be able to attract the traffic from various inland container depots (ICDs) in the country.

Special packages have been announced for handling the ICD traffic, so much so that the KDS has slashed the handling rates for ICD containers by 60 per cent. The Container Corporation of India too has announced freight rates from various ICDs to the KDS terminals. Till recently, no such rates were available.

At present the terminals handle only truck-borne containers. In 2002-03 the total container throughput at KDS was 1,06,000 TEUs compared to 98,000 TEUs in 2001-02, an 8 per cent growth.

Mr M.A. Bhaskarachar, Deputy Chairman of Kolkata Port Trust in charge of KDS, told newspersons here on Thursday that the Eastern Railway had been entrusted with the job of laying the railway lines to connect the container terminals at NSD at a cost of Rs 68 lakh. One locomotive from ER had also been taken on hire to improve the port railway service. While he declined to project the additional container throughput to the NSD terminals in the current year, he felt that there was potential for at least 30,000 boxes, which should normally be routed through KDS but were now being diverted to other ports because of the lack of rail links with the terminals.

Several moves, he said, had been initiated to revamp the railway network within the dock system. Only around 10 per cent of the original network of more than 400 km of railway network within the KDS was now in operation. Thus, a MoU had been signed with CESC Ltd, the private sector power generation and distribution company, for handing over about 12 km of the railway track for maintenance. As a result, the number of rakes on VCESC account was to double to 11-12 per month from the present five to six. A similar arrangement was in the offing with the Food Corporation of India to increase the throughputs of the rakes.

The reinstatement of proper rail connectivity, he indicated, would help KDS handle an additional three-lakh tonnes of rail-borne break-bulk exports and Nepal cargo. Till 2002-03, the share of such cargo in the total rail-borne traffic was negligible. In 2002-03, the rail-borne traffic was six lakh tonnes, mostly on CESC and FCI accounts. In 2002-03, KDS handled a total of 7.2 million tonnes of cargo as compared to 5.4 in 2001-02, thus posting 34 per cent growth, the highest among all major ports, he added.

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