COPENHAGEN: A year after its formal inception, the Kakinada Container Terminal Private Limited (KCTPL) has started making strides by sending commodities weighing about 26,000 tonnes a month to the African countries, West Asia and the United States via Colombo.
As of now rice is the major commodity being exported from the terminal, while seafood and cashew are in the pipeline. From loading containers to one vessel in January this year, the facility is now stacking the loads to three ships a month.
A joint venture of the Kakinada Seaports Limited (KSPL) and the Bothra Shipping Services Private Limited, the company waited for a couple of months to commence the operations after its formal launch. Since then, the exports graph has been surging with more and more small-time rice exporters from the region booking the containers.
“We accept a minimum quantity of 20 tonnes, as the average capacity of container is 26 tonnes. Since there has been a steady increase in the frequency of vessels, there is not much delay in the loading,” says M. Subramanian, terminal manager of the KCTPL.
In the last 11 months, containers have been loaded to 26 ships, including the coastal (domestic) and international ones. The Food Corporation of India formed part of the initial clientèle, as it sent rice to Kochi from the terminal located in the KSPL.
