GACL urges Maharashtra govt to reduce landing, shipping fees

Sanjay Jog

Mumbai, Aug 8: The cement major Gujarat Ambuja Cements (GACL) has called upon the state government to reduce a 50 per cent hike in the landing and shipping fee for all the commodities introduced by the Maharashtra Maritime Board (MMB).

Terming the sudden hike as “discriminatory” and “unjustified,” the company wholetime director AL Kapur in a communication to the government said that in the case of the company’s captive jetty at Ulwe, Navi Mumbai set up for bulk cement, the increase will be from Rs 12 per metric tonne to Rs 18 per metric tonne (mt). “The revision is discriminatory in nature. The rate of styrene monomer priced at Rs 35,000 per mt is prescribed at Rs 5 per mt now proposed to increased to Rs 15 per mt whereas the cement which is priced around Rs 3,200 to Rs 3,500 mt will be increased to Rs 18 per mt from the present Rs 12 per mt,” he added. Mr Kapur demanded that the current landing and shipping fee for handling bulk cement at the Ulwe captive jetty be maintained at Rs 12 per mt with the provision of a nominal rise of 5 per cent to 10 per cent every five years over a span of 15 years. He said that cement being low priced, bulky and voluminous commodity, the increased cost on account of a hike in fee would ultimately put extra burden on the consumers “which is not in the interest of the government, as cement is an essential commodity for the development of housing and infrastructure.”

According to Mr Kapur, there is a need to look into the value of the commodity and the volume of quantity being handled at the port while revising the land and shipping fee. The daily requirement of cement in Mumbai is about 7,000-10,000 tonnes, which means daily around 1,000 trucks or railway wagons have to come to the city. With Ulwe terminal, the company has been able to service about 20 per cent of the Mumbai market.

“In our case, our special fleet of five ships carry cement from the factory at Kodinar, Gujarat to Mumbai and as a result inflow of trucks have been reduced by 200 trips per day,” Mr Kapur said.

The company secretary BL Taparia in another communication to the state government warned that the “exhorbitant increase in landing fee would certainly force the company to rethink its plan to bring more quantities by way of other economical modes of transport, such as road or rail instead of sea whereby MMB would lose the extra quantity and the revenue.” MMB is already getting revenue of about Rs 85 lakh annually and this may go up due to increased volume of cement.