CONCOR provides its own containers for export shipments

NEW DELHI : Container Corporation of India Ltd. (CONCOR), an arm of the Indian Railways, has forayed into a new initiative of providing its containers for export shipments.

Concor currently holds 55,000 domestic containers across metros and major cities. These boxes were available only for domestic shipments. In the first phase under the new initiative, the West Asian countries are included, for which an agreement has been signed with Rais Hassan Saadi Group, said an official at Concor.

The first shipment in the end-to-end international logistics service was dispatched from Mundra to Jebel Ali, and subsequently from Chennai to Jebel Ali. The latest was on August 8 from Concor’s Inland Container Depot, Irugur (Coimbatore), to Jebel Ali via India Gateway Terminal Pvt. Ltd. (IGTPL), in Kochi, the official said. This ensures shippers are not dependent on foreign companies for sourcing containers.

The latest initiative is a major leap in strengthening global trade corridors and providing seamless, end-to-end logistics solutions for shippers in the textile clusters of Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode, Namakkal, Pollachi and Western Tamil Nadu. With this launch, Concor’s logistics network spans national boundaries, offering end-to-end solutions that now start from Chennai to the world, the official said.

“We are planning to cover East and South East Asian countries soon and thereafter Africa, Europe and the US are planned. Since Concor is operating in all the container terminals in the Indian Ports, it can accept the import to any of these ports and can efficiently balance the empty repositioning of its containers,” the official said.

Shipping industry sources explain that earlier shippers used to bring in empty containers from Kochi/Chennai/Thoothukudi and send their cargo to the port and undertake customs clearance at the port before shipping it out. However, in the current scenario, Concor’s empty containers are already available at ICD/Irugur, said sources.

Mr. Dinesh Krishnan, Founder & MD of the Chennai-based United Shipping Services Pvt Ltd, said Concor’s move to provide containers for global shipments will help in the international shipping of agricultural products from India. “Concor picks up container-loaded agri products from remote ICD across the country and rail to port CFS for export shipping. Shippers can book Concor’s container for shipping from farm to final destination under a single process & costs,” he said.