India ready to set up transhipment hub

Dredging delays have held up the opening of Vallarpadam, which is billed as India's first container transhipment hub, but Anil Singh, senior vice-president and managing director of DP World, Subcontinent, told Cargonews Asia that the port would be operational soon. "We are ready with cranes and other equipment and infrastructure," he said. The Indian government and DP World have together invested US$665 million in the terminal. Equipment includes six super-post panamax cranes and 15 Eco-RTGs (rubber-tyred gantries) that can be serviced and maintained at a state of the art workshop. Vallarpadam is also said to be the first port-based special economic zone with the advantage of 115 hectares of unencumbered land that provides room for further development. The International Container Transhipment Terminal or ICTT at Vallarpadam comes under the jurisdiction of Cochin Port Trust, which has awarded the dredging contract to India's Jaisu. The port, located in the southern state of Kerala on the west coast, will offer a draft of 14.5m, which is considered adequate to take in the largest ships afloat. Construction had begun in 2007 and operations were slated to begin in August this year. Singh, who has been in the maritime industry for 35 years and headed DP World's Africa region for two years before moving to the Sub-Continent, is hopeful that dredging can be completed to ensure an opening in December. In phase one, the berth of 600m length will be able to handle one million TEUs a year. The annual capacity can be increased to four million TEUS after the quay is lengthened further to a total of 1,800m, but Singh clarified that any expansion would depend on market demand. When it takes off, Vallarpadam is targeted to skim off cargo from the industrial heartland of the south, which accounts for approximately two million TEUs annually or 25 percent of India's trade. Over 45 percent of India's trade is transhipped through Colombo, Salalah and Jebel Ali due to a dearth of ports with the capability of accommodating large vessels. This has added additional costs to the trade in terms of paying for feeder vessels and delays caused by longer transit times. The development of a transhipment hub within the country therefore is seen as imperative. "Container trade in India has been growing year-on-year by 15 percent," Singh said. Growth is expected to accelerate further with the coming on stream of Vallarpadam. In Southern India, DP World operates terminals in Cochin, Chennai and Visakhapatnam. The global operator also runs Kulpi in the eastern state of West Bengal, Mundra (Gujarat state) and Nhava Sheva near Mumbai on the west coast. The global port operator accounts for almost half of India's annual aggregate of eight million TEUs. Singh is excited about Cochin's success because the location is deemed to be strategically positioned in close proximity to the major global east-west trade routes. But he is unequivocal in his assertion that limited infrastructure has always been a stumbling block to rapid growth of container shipments. Road and rail facilities were inadequate while ports were incapable of taking in larger ships. These issues have been apparently taken care of at Vallarpadam. The government has assumed responsibility for providing infrastructure support by investing in a new four-lane national highway connecting the terminal to both the west and east coasts. Work is in progress to link the port to the bustling industrial complexes of central India. An electrified rail link running for eight kilometres will the enable ICTT to run as many as 15 trains daily that will provide direct access to the national rail network. One of the key issues in Indian private port development through what has been described as a public private partnership, reflecting a tie-up between the government and private investors, has been the regulation of tariffs by the Central government. Major ports such as Cochin are so designated because they come under the jurisdiction of the Central government and are administered by a board of trustees. Singh, however, points out that the Cochin Port Trust has taken the decision to ensure that ICTT stays competitive with international transhipment ports in the South and Southeast Asia region.
(Source:www.cargonewsasia.com)