Congestion in West coast worries shippers

EXIM Trade is worried about the continued bunched arrival of vessels and schedule leading to congestion in ports in the West Coast Ports and in particular Jawaharlal Nehru port JNPA.

According to media reports the trade said they have noticed the following issues continue to persist in the JNPA region. They include  continued bunched arrival of vessels and schedule integrity issues,  Huge surge in Export demand, Excessive demand for export forms over and above proforma move count,  Late arrival of export trailers much beyond gate cut off timings and container terminal operators  continue to mix ICD containers for all terminals and offloading at neighboring terminals. This creates additional burden and operational issues with huge demand for resources and affecting the overall yard dynamics. 

The EXIM industry in the south are concerned about the attitude of the shipping ministry to concentrate on infra and connectivity developments in West coast ports leaving the Ports in the east coast in the lurch. While there is excessive congestion in Ports of Maharashtra and Gujarat, the container terminals in major ports in the East coast are working to fifty per cent of their capacity during the last eight years. Development projects scheduled in the east coast ports are either indefinitely delayed or dropped. They cited an instance of Union Home Ministry taking more than 18 months to give security clearance to the contractor who won the bid for the third container terminal project at VOC Port, while the Outer harbor project for the port conceived in 2010 is yet to take off. More so when the contractor who won the bid for the container terminal is executing various projects in government owned ports.

Despite these challenges and out of turn events, PSA Mumbai continue to handle the vessels/trucks/trains without any compromise on service levels and quality. PSA Mumbai has been handling on an average 5,171 TEUs road queue (Import as well as Export) per day since Mar 1, 2023 until Mar 13 2023. Around 77 rakes (mixed & dedicated) have been handled during this period. We assure you that we will continue to maintain our service standards and ensure faster turnaround of vessels and trucks. PSA Mumbai is adequately equipped and prepared to handle the peak demands and maintain our service levels.

There have been rumors and advisories floating about operational issues at PSA Mumbai and there is some sort of “Congestion “. We would like to clear the air about this through this circular/advisory

 PSA Mumbai is fully operational and is functioning as usual. The Terminal gates/ container yard/ quayside/ rail operations are continuing without any interruptions. The vessels are berthing and sailing without any huge delays and receival / delivery are round the clock with no interruptions.