Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals (BMCT), one of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port’s five container handling hubs, has been facing congestion due to the sudden surge in container traffic. This was caused due to berth closure at other terminals and missed vessel schedules after some events unfolded in the Chinese market. However, as per Deputy Chairman, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA), Unmesh Wagh, the congestion is expected to clear in a week.
The Gateway Terminals India (GTI), run by the Dutch company, APM Terminals, has temporarily closed one of its berths for infrastructure upgradation. It is likely to be completed by September 2023. The Nhava Sheva Free Port Terminal recently acquired the container terminal earlier handled by JNPA and is revamping it in two phases. The work is expected to complete by the last quarter of 2024. The port will operate one of the container vessels and eventually increase the capacity, while the other berth area will be expanded to enhance the existing rail coverage from 20 to 30 metres.
Industry sources believe the congestion to be because of an order from the Customs Department last October directing all factory-stuffed export containers to be moved through the Centralised Parking Plaza (CPP) only. This parking space was developed by the JNPA to complete the Customs documentation and facilitate quicker movement of export boxes for loading onto vessels waiting at the terminals. As a result, the trade players have sought permission from the Customs to temporarily store buffer containers at the nearby Container Freight Stations (CFS) till the congestion clears.
However, JNPA denies the link between the two. As per Wagh, the parking plaza has helped reduce the dwell time at Jawaharlal Nehru Port by 20 per cent to three hours. It takes just 30 minutes to move the export containers from the parking to the terminals. He says the parking plaza commenced operations in 2020, and its capacity never crossed 70 per cent. It has never been congested.
The port authority also plans to install a container scanner in the parking plaza to further reduce the time to process and move the containers. In addition, it is building a new Centralised Parking Plaza to handle containers moving in and out of BMCT. This new facility is expected to manage around 45 per cent of the overall container handling capacity of Jawaharlal Nehru Port once the terminal’s second phase commences operations in 2025.
