Around 3,000 trucks are stuck at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), India's biggest port, following Sunday's violence in which over 28 truck drivers assaulted policemen and torched the vehicles. On Monday, Navi Mumbai police's top officials met the terminal management and agitators to keep things under control.
Though port officials claimed that the high congestion was a result of industrial unrest and violence on Sunday, insiders say long queues of trucks is a daily affair.
The quantum of business loss due to congestion and delays can be ascertained only after knowing the type of cargo in each truck, experts said. But it is expected to run into hundreds of crores of rupees. Congestion is also also leading to business moving to countries like Singapore, Dubai and neighbouring China and Sri Lanka.
JNPT has three terminal operators – Jawaharlal Nehru Port Container Terminal (JNPCT), Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal (NSICT) and Government Terminals India (GTI).
Days before the Sunday's violence at GTI, in which dozens of truck drivers assaulted the police and torched several of their vehicles, the shipping ministry had asked NSICT to make the clearing process online. dna, in its January 7 edition, had reported how thousands of cargo container trucks have been queuing up for over 15 km to get inside NSICT.
The ministry asked NSICT to do away the process of filling Form 13 manually, which is very time-consuming. It set a deadline of February 15. An NSCIT spokesperson did not comment on the ministry directive. Consequently, export goods are moving at a snail's pace, taking over 60 hours to cover one round-trip. An NSCIT executive claimed that there has never been a 15-km long queue and it is about 2.5 km long on an average.
"Due to the snail's pace at which traffic moves, on an average, it takes three days to clear one truck. Due to industrial unrest at GTI and the slow down following Sunday's violence, the number of trucks have gone up to around 3,000. "The unrest from this congestion was bound to spill out into violence, sooner than later," said a leading cargo exporter operating from the port.
Source:- dnaindia.com
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