Indian ship on way with 185 truck chassis

A ship carrying 185 truck chassis left Chennai port on Saturday for Bangladesh's Mongla port.

Nitin Gadkari, India's minister for shipping, road transport, highways and water resources, digitally flagged off the RoRo ship cum general cargo vessel—MV IIDM Doodle—carrying the chassis manufactured by leading Indian company Ashok Leyland.

There are problems at the border so the company has decided to explore sea, which will also help in controlling damages and reducing pollution, said Vinod K Dasari, Ashok Leyland's managing director.

Normally, truck chassis travel a distance of 1,500 km by road before reaching Bangladesh.

The ship is expected to reach Mongla in five days, down from 20-25 days needed for transportation by road, Gadkari said.

For this trip alone, a total of about 3 lakh vehicle-kilometre of road travel will be saved and it would also save time at the congested Petrapole-Benapole checkpoint, he said.

According to the minister, coastal transport will be more cost-effective and environment-friendly. He urged all automobile manufacturers to use coastal shipping mode.

A shipping company official said the cost saving would be anywhere between 20-40 percent if cargo is moved through coastal shipping.

Ships can also transport other goods, an official of the Indian shipping ministry said.

The trip will also help explore the options on how to make the sea route transportation economically more viable, the official said.

Ashok Leyland currently exports around 12,000 truck chassis to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and countries in Africa.

The volume to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is likely to increase by 80 percent in the coming years.

Now, over 500 trucks per month are expected to be exported using the sea route which will take away a lot of traffic off India's roads, Gadkari said.

The coastal shipping agreement between the two countries was signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Bangladesh in June 2015.

Based on the agreement, sea transportation from India to Bangladesh is being treated as coastal movement, making it eligible for 40 percent concession on vessel- and cargo-related charges applicable in Indian ports.

Fuel consumption is much lower via sea route, so transportation by waterways will also reduce carbon footprints, according to an official statement issued from New Delhi.

The use of coastal shipping for cargo movement from India to Bangladesh comes at a time when exporters are facing hurdles on India-Bangladesh border.

Petrapole, around 80km from Kolkata, is the nerve centre for handling business worth Rs 25,000 crore a year, an official said.

Petrapole-Benapole is a key and busy gateway for India-Bangladesh business. But there is just a single lane and it is narrow, which becomes a long bottleneck for cargo carriers.

An estimated 350 trucks are cleared from Indian side while 80 trucks come to India from Bangladesh every day through the gateway.

Exporters say at least 3,500 Indian trucks are waiting on a given day to cross the border, creating a big problem for parking.

Of them, 2,000 trucks have to wait for about 10 days before they get parking at Petrapole.

While the Bongaon municipality on Indian side accommodates 1,200 trucks, the rest are at the mercy of private parking lots, where contractors charge an upfront fee of about Rs 4,000 for seven days, said an exporter.

 The last 5km of the cargo journey to the border should take a few hours but in reality it takes about 7-10 days due to heavy traffic congestion, an official said.