Mundra Under Pressure: Train Operators Warn of Crisis as Congestion Costs Cross Rs 4 Crore a Month

In a strongly worded letter to Adani Mundra Port’s CEO, India’s Association of Container Train Operators has laid bare a worsening cycle of rake underloading, FIFO violations, and disputed wagon fitness rulings, and warned it may withhold port dues if relief is not forthcoming.

India’s busiest private container port is once again at the centre of a serious operational dispute. On 29 May 2026, Manish Puri, President of the Association of Container Train Operators (ACTO), wrote directly to Mr. Sujal Shah, CEO of Adani Mundra Port, detailing three compounding problems that ACTO says are inflicting daily financial damage on container train operators (CTOs), and receiving nothing but silence in return.

The letter, which has been copied to Mr. Ashwani Gupta, CEO of Adani Ports and SEZ (APSEZ), puts a stark number on the situation: underframe wagon costs alone are running at an estimated ₹12.5 lakh per day, or nearly ₹4 crore per month — a burden borne entirely by CTOs for failures that ACTO argues are squarely the port’s responsibility.      The most operationally damaging grievance concerns the utilisation of railway rakes. ACTO estimates that actual loading for outward trains is running 10–15% below the load plans that CTOs submit to the port. In concrete terms, single-stack evacuations are, in some cases, leaving Mundra with fewer than 90 TEUs per rake — a threshold below which the cost of running underframes (empty wagon frames) kicks in, adding approximately ₹25,000 per wagon.      ACTO estimates an average of two such underframe movements per train under current conditions. The ripple effects are significant: lower per-train evacuation extends the overall congestion, squanders the haulage cost advantage of double-stack movement, and drives up ground rent as containers sit longer in the port precinct.      When CTOs have pressed the port for explanations, the responses have amounted to little more than ‘operational issues.’ ACTO’s own assessment points to a more systemic set of causes: driver shortages, a build-up of port pendency, pressure from transshipment boxes, and chronic rake pipeline congestion. ‘Unfortunately, we seem to be back to the same situation that we faced last year,’ the letter notes, ‘no real solution having been found.’      The second complaint concerns the systematic breakdown of first-in-first-out (FIFO) discipline in container loading. Under operational pressure to achieve rapid rake turnarounds, Mundra’s yard operations are reportedly prioritising newly arrived containers over older ones. This is not simply an efficiency concern — it directly generates ground rent charges that shipping lines pass on to CTOs.      ACTO says that even when older containers are specifically planned into consecutive rake loads by CTOs, the port is routinely unable to execute those plans. The result is that cargo owners and importers receive no advisory from the port about the congestion status, leaving them to exert commercial pressure on CTOs who are themselves powerless to intervene. ‘Our requests tend to fall on deaf ears,’ the letter states.      The third and perhaps most contentious issue involves a port-deployed maintenance team that has been operational since 16 February 2026. Its mandate, which is to inspect rakes and certify containers are loaded safely, is not itself disputed. The problem, ACTO argues, lies in how the team is being used.      Wagons that have already been certified fit by Indian Railways, and that have carried loaded export containers from an Inland Container Depot (ICD) all the way to Mundra, are subsequently declared unfit by the port’s maintenance agency due to Automatic Twist Lock (ATL) issues. Port operations then refuse to load containers onto those wagons, and underframes are booked — at the CTO’s expense.        ACTO raises a pointed regulatory question: on what authority can a port-nominated private agency supersede a fitness certification issued by Indian Railways? And if ATL damage did occur during unloading operations at Mundra itself, why is the resulting cost being transferred entirely to the CTO? ‘Such issues need to be addressed by the port instead of merely refusing to load such wagons and passing on the cost impact,’ the letter argues.

ACTO’s letter sets out four specific demands: removal of double-stack (DS) loading charges in situations where the port itself is failing to meet DS load plans; relief on ground rent levies arising from the port’s own pendency build-up; the port maintenance team to address ATL issues at source rather than generating underframe costs; and the issuance of formal congestion advisories so that cargo owners can be kept informed.      If these are not addressed, ACTO says it is prepared to consider ‘stronger action’ — including withholding port dues that CTOs contend are being generated through no fault of their own.

Mundra’s congestion challenges are not new. The port handles roughly a quarter of India’s container traffic, and the rail-port interface has long been a structural pressure point. The last-mile connectivity between the port precinct and the Western Dedicated Freight Corridor, driver availability for rake movements, and the management of transshipment volumes have all been cited in previous cycles of disruption.     The current episode, ACTO notes, follows a ‘relatively difficult period’ exacerbated by the conflict in the Middle East, which disrupted shipping lanes, rerouted cargo flows, and introduced unpredictability into vessel scheduling at Indian ports. Mundra, as the primary gateway for trade in north and northwest India, absorbed a disproportionate share of that disruption.