Truckers strike to hit APM Terminals facility at JN port
An indefinite strike from Wednesday called by truckers carrying containers threatens to hurt a terminal operated by APM Terminals Management BV at Jawaharlal Nehru port near Mumbai, Live Mint reports.
Gateway Terminals India Pvt. Ltd is 74% owned by APM Terminals, one of the world’s top three container terminal operators. The balance stake is held by state-run rail hauler Container Corp. of India Ltd (Concor). Gateway is the biggest of the three container loading facilities by volume operating at JN port, India’s busiest container gateway. It handles about 20% of India’s container volume passing through ports.
The Nhava Sheva Container Operators’ Welfare Association (NSCOWA) and the Maharashtra Heavy Vehicle and Inter-State Container Operators’ Association (MHVICOA), the two main truckers’ bodies representing about 470 members, have decided to boycott the movement of trucks to and from Gateway till their demands are addressed, they said in a notice.
Their main demand is that their trucks should be emptied by Gateway within two hours of leaving the container freight station (CFS) located close to the port.
A CFS is an off-dock facility licensed by the customs department to help decongest a port by shifting containerized cargo and customs-related activities outside the port area. Due to customs procedures and space constraints at India’s ports, customs clearance takes place at the CFS.
Pravin Paithankar, president of MHVICOA, said there’s always a 7-8km queue of trucks waiting to enter the gates of the terminal.
A spokesman for JN port said trucks carrying containers have to wait outside Gateway, resulting in the long queue. “Trucks are taking longer to get inside the gates. The longer they wait, the less business they can do. The truckers get paid for each container they move from the nearby CFS to the terminal run by Gateway and back,” he said.
Gateway said it couldn’t be blamed for the problem.
“There is no detention at the gates,” a spokesman for Gateway Terminals said. “The problem is outside the gates. Unfortunately, Gateway Terminals is not in control of what is happening outside the gates. It’s fully a traffic cops’ problem,” he said.
There has been an increase of approximately 30% in the number of trucks coming by road to the terminal. This is due to the enforcement of weight limitation rules by traffic enforcement authorities.
A truck can now carry only one standard 20 ft container, compared with the two it could load earlier before the weight limitation rules were enforced a few months ago.
This has been compounded by the haphazard parking of tractor trailers on the approach roads leading to the JN port gates. The traffic management for the approach roads leading to JN port is with the traffic enforcement authorities, Gateway said in a notice.
Disputing the claims made by the truckers bodies, Gateway said it was off-loading the container from the trucks within 90 minutes of entering the gates.
“There is no problem at the terminal. But, if the strike continues, the volumes may slow down,” the spokesman for Gateway added.
JN port loaded 4.32 million standard containers from three separate container terminals in 2011-12. Out of this, Gateway Terminals handled 1.89 million standard containers.
