Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) should develop a separate dock system with ship-to-shore handling facility in order to efficiently handle growing Bangladesh and coastal cargo, an ASSOCHAM paper has suggested.
“KoPT is facing a number of challenges; as such it should alternatively develop separate berths/dock area as it would ease congestion due to traffic from Chittagong Port,” suggested an ASSOCHAM paper on ‘Shipping, Ports, Customs and Inland Waterways’.
The paper also suggested that either Dhamra Port or Ennore Port should be developed as transhipment ports.
It also said that permission for transhipment of Bangladesh export cargo via Indian ports, viz., Kolkata, Visakhapatnam, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Mundra Port will help create a reverse cargo flow from Bangladesh and develop the Indo-Bangladesh trade lane using rail/inland waterway and short sea shipping options as transport modes.
The ASSOCHAM paper also suggested that coastal ex-im cargo for Bangladesh can have the flexibility to avail DPE (Direct Port Entry) for exports from Kolkata, instead of CFS routing; trade volumes will grow. “This would serve as revenue incentive”.
Further, manual filing of Import General Manifest (IGM) and other processes at Kolkata Port should be done away with to minimise delay in cargo movement and reduce operational costs, it said.
Noting that under the current Indo-Bangladesh inland waterway protocol, there are just four calls agreed for transportation of goods, the ASSOCHAM paper has suggested, including additional ports from either side.
“There is a substantial amount of cargo available for additional ports, for example—Pakur, Farakka, etc. within NW-1 for delivery in many other ports of Bangladesh,” it said, as per a release.
