Incentives for yard productivity of private terminals, installation of cameras for automatic container verification and providing additional yard space at terminals are some of the recommendations made by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to improve Chennai port’s operational efficiencies, says a press release from the Chennai Port Trust (ChPT).
The Shipping Ministry engaged the consultancy firm BCG to conduct a detailed study on benchmarking, capacity assessment and to prepare a roadmap for operational improvement of all major ports in line with international ports.
For the Chennai port, BCG also suggested shifting of frontline pre-gate processing to container freight station, allowing discount in charges on rake operations for Bengaluru Inland Container Depot, developing common railway yard inside the port and facilitating construction of new POL product pipelines. Matching/reducing the tariff of Chennai port to compete with neighbouring ports, commencing edible oil rakes between Chennai and Madurai and making investment in mechanised fertiliser bagging plant are some of the other recommendations made. Chennai port has taken action plan to implement BCG recommendations in full. Working Groups have been constituted for the purpose - one at the level of Traffic Manager for daily monitoring of the implementation of recommendations and the other one at the level of Deputy Chairman for weekly monitoring of its implementation, the release said.
As a part of Mission Resurge initiated by the ChPT, initiatives like implementation of advanced RFID system integrating all stakeholders, commencement of marine shuttle service and starting a special container train service between Bengaluru and Chennai have already been taken.
The port handles like POL, edible oil, containers, automobiles, project cargo, steel, break bulk and dry bulk. However, it faces stiff competition due to the emergence of four competing ports of Krishnapatnam, Karaikal, Kamarajar and Kattupalli, the release said.