Various Container Terminals in India and Container Lead Time

Seaports play an important role in a country’s social & economic development as these help the nation in improving the international trade, increasing the exports and at the same time, helping in importing the goods efficiently and in a cost-effective manner.

To ensure a smoother international trade, Container Terminals are required to be developed at different locations. Container terminals (also known as container ports) are the transitional facilities developed usually near to the seaports to enable the shipping lines to optimize the loading / routing of the containers on the way to their final destination. Well planned container ports significantly reduce the container lead time which is essentially mean that turn around time of finding & stuffing or destuffing the container.

Many a times, the shipment arrives at a container terminal in a single ship and is then the cargo is realigned according the routes and transportation requirement of the customers in the destination country. Such terminals are also used as places for upkeeping and provisional storage of the shipping containers. Many a times, the handling of the cargo (loading, unloading and temporary storage) is also done here. This is especially useful for Loose Container Load i.e. LCL cargos.

Once a ship arrives at the seaport, special cranes remove the containers from the vessel. The crane transfers the containers from the cargo hold & deck to specially designed vehicles (Automated guided vehicles, called AGVs) which then moves these containers to a temporary storage area. Once the ship’s cargo is adjusted or emptied, these containers are then shifted to their next mode of transport. This could be trucks, smaller boats, barges, deep sea ships etc.

In order to load the outgoing containers in the ship, the above process is followed in the reverse manner. Most of the terminals has special equipments and heavy machinery to handle cargo of such quantum. These days, major terminals are using automation technology to automate & speed up these tasks.

Following this philosophy, India has also developed several container terminals spread across the nation. India is a huge country surrounded by water and with a large coastline with Bay of Bengal on the East and the huge Arabian sea on the west side. And the grand Indian Ocean on below the southern tip of the country.

Due to the large coastline of the country, India has developed over 13 state of the art seaports which are well connected by roads to all parts of the country.

Majority of the Indian seaports are controlled by the Government of India and fall under the Ministry of Ports, Shipping & Waterways. There are also some facilities & India Container Terminals that are owned & operated by private companies.

The major ports in India are Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust – Nhava Sheva (JNPT) in Mumbai (Maharashtra), Mundra Port (Gujarat), Port of Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port Trust (Kolkata, West Bengal), Chidambaranar Port – VOCP (Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu).

These technologically advanced India container terminals has significantly improved the operational excellence and has ensured smother movement of the cargo inside and outside the terminals. Due to this, the container lead time has significantly decreased. Reduced container lead times has positively improved the trade volume and has bought down the storage & other administrative costs.

Keeping this in mind, the Government of India created a joint venture with Japanese IT major NEC Corporation to establish NICDC Logistics Data Services (NLDS). NICDC’s advanced tool, known as Logistics Data Bank (LDB) helps in tracking the containers and in ensuring a smooth & predictable movement of the containers within the Indian Container Terminals and thereby reducing the Container Lead Times considerably. Company’s ultimate goal is to bring visibility and transparency in Logistics environment, streamlining the operations across the supply chain and helping the government to improve the ease of doing business in India.