Trade bodies' appeal to ChPT on congestion surcharge

News was prepared under the information support of Online Daily Newspaper on Hellenic and international Shipping "Hellenic Shipping News".

31 Oct 2011

Representatives of leading chambers of commerce and trade bodies have urged the Chennai Port Trust (ChPT) not to give priority berthing to shipping lines that have collected congestion

surcharge since August 15, citing delay in turnaround of vessels.
Voicing their protest, the representatives questioned the rationale behind such surcharge and said it was levied even when there was no congestion at the second container terminal.
Talking to reporters here, they said since August 15 shipping lines started levying surcharge of $75 per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) and now it was in the range of $200-210 per TEU. It was bound to go up further. The shipping lines had collected about Rs.200 crore, of which half was collected during October alone.
A.V. Vijayakumar, president, Chennai Custom House Agents' Association (CCHAA), said on an average about 1.20 lakh containers were handled every month by both the terminal operators and the amount collected by way of surcharge was set to cross Rs.200 crore in the last three months.
“All these levies have dented the image of Chennai port, even as the top officials are keeping mum though they have the authority to question the shipping lines. Trade is paying the penalty for no fault of theirs. We request the ChPT officials not to give priority berthing to them as it was done a few years ago,” said J. Krishnan, chairman, expert committee on logistics, Madras Chamber of commerce and Industry (MCCI).
Shipping lines started levying Chennai Trade Recovery (CTR) charges citing the delay in berthing and in delivery of containers.
The delay also led to rescheduling of their departure to other ports.
Importers unhappy
However, importers were unhappy with the surcharge and said they were being penalised for someone's fault. Exporters were agitated as they were unable to lay their hands on the containers even five days after paying the surcharge.
G. Raghu Shankar, chairman, shipping committee, Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICC), said big vessels handled 2,000 boxes per trip and levied surcharge of $200 on it amounting to Rs.18 crore.
Assuming the expenses were Rs.3 crore per trip, the lines made a huge profit. However, the amount was not used for development purposes. Udayakumar Bhaskar Reddy, co-chairman, MCCI expert committee on Logistics, said shipping lines levied surcharge as per their will due to absence of a regulatory body. The Centre should allow the Tariff Authority for Major Ports to function as a regulator.
On Saturday, ChPT Chairman Atulya Misra met the stakeholders and asked them to prepare a white paper on the levy of surcharge.
“It is surprising that shipping lines are taking this opportunity to make profits. This is not the way to treat the port. There is no congestion in second terminal, but congestion charges are levied. It is not good to penalise the port. We will come to a conclusion on this issue on November 2,” he told reporters on Sunday.
The meeting was attended by the representatives of customs agents, chambers of commerce, container terminal operators and steamer agents, besides Port officials. The port's Deputy Chairman P.C. Parida warned that if the shipping lines failed to withdraw the surcharge, ChPT would intervene.
Source: The Hindu