Friday 22 July 2011

At least five more container shipping lines have followed APL in imposing a congestion surcharge on cargo passing through JNPT, as India’s busiest port of Mumbai battles equipment failure, work to replace crane and the monsoon at the start of the peak-season.

On Wednesday,IFW reported that APL had introduced the surcharge.

Now K Line, Wan Hai Lines (India), OOCL, Pacific International Lines and Regional Container Lines have announced they will aim to recover the extra costs incurred as a result of the congestion at the port, according to the Western India Shippers’ Association (WISA), a body representing about 130 exporters and importers.

“The situation at the terminal is so bad that ships have to wait for as much as 10 days to berth,” said Dinesh Gautama, Vice-chairman of the Container Shipping Lines Association, which represents foreign container shipping firms operating in India.

“Even after berthing, there are restrictions on time that a ship can stay and the number of crane moves for loading and unloading containers.”

In May, the port announced it would reduce its container berthing capacity by half for 40 days from 20 June to replace three cranes. As a result, it can only handle vessels shorter than 260 metres in length.

One shipping line executive said many carriers were unloading containers at other ports because of the restriction.

“Lines are incurring additional costs for bringing containers back that are discharged elsewhere. So, we have imposed the contingency recovery surcharge from customers to recover the extra costs,” he said.