Seventeen Ships which had arrived
at Colombo Port were turned back due to the recent protest by the port trade
unions, Minister of Ports, Shipping and Aviation Minister Nimal Siripala de
Silva said . He told Parliament that despite tremendous efforts made to
bring them back to port he only managed to bring a few of them back
according to Colombo based newspapers..
“I discussed with shipping agencies to bring the ships
back to the port. But, only managed to bring a few of them back,” he said.
The Minister said the protests by port employees will only result in the
deviation of business from Colombo port to nearby ports in southern
India “If port employees continue to protest, Colombo port will
collapse while ports in countries close to us will flourish,” he
said.
Industry sources here said exporters from Tamil Nadu will suffer
a huge set back since they are dependent on the feeder port VOC Port Tuticorin. The Tuticorin port being a feeder port depends entirely on
Colombo Port for transporting the EXIM Cargo to reach the liner vessels. Tuticorin port has no infrastructure to
handle liner vessels and hence plays the role of a feeder port. With Colombo
not receiving the liner vessels, the entire supply chain will now be affected
says the shippers.
The industry blamed the shipping
ministry for denying the transshipment port status to VOC Port after calling
off the Colachel transshipment terminal project without assigning any reason. The ministry is working whole hog to
implement a transshipment terminal project at Nicobar Islands.