Cargo exporters on India’s east coast are pressuring container lines to provide more dependable mainline shipping alternatives via NhavaSheva/Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) or Mundra Port, citing continued bottlenecks at Sri Lanka’s Colombo Port.
Local exporters will benefit from new train connections from India’s East Coast. Maersk and CMA CGM have developed additional rail links from India’s East Coast in collaboration with Container Corporation of India (Concor) to assist local exporters in diverting cargo away from the conventional Colombo route. Block trains run between Durgapur, an inland container yard on Kolkata’s suburbs, and New Mangalore Port (NMPT) in South India. The train services have been designed to feed cargo onto Maersk and CMA CGM vessels calling at the PSA terminal (BMCT) in NhavaSheva.
From Durgapur, about 45 forty-foot containers were reportedly booked to connect Maersk’s ME2 Service, which rotates NhavaSheva, Salalah, Jeddah, Suez Canal, Port Said East, Port Tangier Med, Algeciras, Valencia, Genoa, Port Said East, Suez Canal, Jeddah, Salalah, Mundra and NhavaSheva.
“We are already handling regular trains from Goa and Bengaluru ICDs, with mixed export loads from Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd,” a terminal official in NhavaSheva said. PSA Mumbai (BMCT) has expanded its hinterland presence with the first-ever direct train service from JN Port to New Mangalore (NMPT). In collaboration with CMA CGM and Container Corporation of India Ltd, it is now offering regional shippers more flexibility, reliability, and environmentally responsible solutions (Concor).
