Financial constraints have driven the Cochin Port Trust to divert funds from pension accounts to pay salaries to its employees numbering around 3,000, as a sequel to the delay in generating enough income by the International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT).
The crisis has forced labour trustees of the Port Trust to call for a halt to dredging operations for the ICTT, which they say are eating into the precious resources. The Port Trust, they point out, has already spent about Rs. 70 crores over the past six months on dredging work.
However, the port authority maintains that achieving the desired depth of 14.5 metres and carrying out maintenance of dredging are keys to holding up the potentially revenue generating project, which has seen container throughput shrink five per cent for the year-to-year period.
According to Port Trust sources, container throughput at the ICTT had fallen to 2,12,063 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) from April to November this year compared to the 2, 22, 096 TEUs for the same period last year.
Though throughput showed some improvement during the first 10 days of November, it is no stretch of time to predict a revival of fortunes for the ICTT, which was inaugurated in February 2011 with the hope that box movement would rise up to about eight lakh TEUs a year initially and then touch a million TEUs annually.
Movement of containerised cargo through the ICTT for the whole of last financial year stood at 3,37,053 TEUs, belying expectations with which the project was commissioned. A host of problems, including the ones related to procedures for clearing transshipment containers, have prevented frequent calls by mainline vessels at the ICTT even as its counterpart in Colombo continues to flourish, banking on containers from India.
It may be mentioned here that the Union Shipping Ministry waived Cabotage law for a period of three years early this year for the ICTT. But its expected result is hit by the recent opinion voiced by the Defence Ministry that all transshipment containers passing through ICTT should be scanned.
The crisis has forced labour trustees of the Port Trust to call for a halt to dredging operations for the ICTT, which they say are eating into the precious resources. The Port Trust, they point out, has already spent about Rs. 70 crores over the past six months on dredging work.
However, the port authority maintains that achieving the desired depth of 14.5 metres and carrying out maintenance of dredging are keys to holding up the potentially revenue generating project, which has seen container throughput shrink five per cent for the year-to-year period.
According to Port Trust sources, container throughput at the ICTT had fallen to 2,12,063 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) from April to November this year compared to the 2, 22, 096 TEUs for the same period last year.
Though throughput showed some improvement during the first 10 days of November, it is no stretch of time to predict a revival of fortunes for the ICTT, which was inaugurated in February 2011 with the hope that box movement would rise up to about eight lakh TEUs a year initially and then touch a million TEUs annually.
Movement of containerised cargo through the ICTT for the whole of last financial year stood at 3,37,053 TEUs, belying expectations with which the project was commissioned. A host of problems, including the ones related to procedures for clearing transshipment containers, have prevented frequent calls by mainline vessels at the ICTT even as its counterpart in Colombo continues to flourish, banking on containers from India.
It may be mentioned here that the Union Shipping Ministry waived Cabotage law for a period of three years early this year for the ICTT. But its expected result is hit by the recent opinion voiced by the Defence Ministry that all transshipment containers passing through ICTT should be scanned.
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