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With a view to expand containerised traffic between coast and hinterland, Concor has acquired the infrastructure of KIOCL located at the New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT).
KIOCL built a four full-line (900 m each) railway siding on NMPT premises in 2004 to handle iron ore exports at a cost of about Rs. 14 crore on NMPT’s land. The company has now sold the siding to Concor for the same amount.
KIOCL Chairman and Managing Director Malay Chatterjee said the company was rarely using the siding by paying Rs. 2 crore annual lease rent to NMPT. The construction cost is now recovered while KIOCL continues to use the facility whenever it brings iron ore wagons.
Concor was vigorously looking to expand business by creating ICDs outside Bengaluru (Whitefield). While one would come up at Kadakola near Mysuru on a 60-acre plot in about 16 months, the Mangaluru facility was readily available.
There was a great demand for containerised transport for coffee, finished goods and other products between coast and hinterland. Concor plans to run at least 10 container trains a month initially out of Mangaluru.
The siding would enable Concor to handle this traffic even as the Railways has permitted to run container trains on Mangaluru-Hassan line with load up to 80 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) of container on one rake.
Besides the railway siding, Concor would also get about 47,000 sq m adjacent NMPT land to provide a warehousing facility. Warehouses would add to the container traffic business. Concor is also mulling to use two warehouses of the Central Warehousing Corporation too.
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