Shipping Corporation to launch west coast feeder service to Colombo

Kailash Rajwadkar

Mumbai, June 11: In order to connect the Indian peninsula at both ends, Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) is now focusing on the coastal feeder operations by re-launching its west coast service to Colombo. “We will do it in due course”, a senior official from SCI said.

With the launch of the Far East service on June 1, SCI has now covered 85 per cent of India’s foreign trade in the container mode. All the three SCI container liners, viz East coast-US, Europe and now the Far-East converge upon Colombo making it a common connecting point, thereby creating the need of the feeder service to Colombo, officials said.

SCI’s feeder operations on the west coast launched last year faced tremendous teething problems due to the customs procedure on trans-shipment which led to the closure of the service within three months, officials said.

Under the customs regulations, bank guarantees for trans-shipment of containers meant for Indian destinations at Indian ports, made the service expensive and unfeasible, officials said. We have now urged the government to remove the procedural impediments and are hopeful of resuming the service, they said.

“Wherever possible and feasible, trans-shipment will be done at Indian ports but ultimately it would be more governed by the trade’s preference, since many cargos are time-sensitive,” officials said.

SCI’s west coast feeder, which was closed last year connected Pipavav-Tuticorin-Cochin-JNP while its feeder operations on the East coast, viz Chennai-Colombo and Calcutta-Haldia-Colombo, continues without any hindrance, officials said.

Meanwhile, the voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) launched on May 11 has drawn flak from SCI’s staff union. It has now been decided that SCI’s management would first negotiate with the staff union on its charter of demands before directly approaching the employees, an office-bearer of the staff union said.

“The unilaterally worked out VRS is a breach of our bilateral agreement. We have requested our members to ignore the communication from the management on VRS,” the office-bearer said.