Plying of only three ships disheartens shipping companies

Shipping companies have expressed their discontent over the small number of ships that would be plying on the Pangaon-Chittagong river route.
Plying of only three vessels meant for the route would make the future of the country's biggest inland container terminal quite disheartening, they said.
The frustration of the top shipping executives came at a meeting on the Pangaon terminal held in the city last week.
The country's biggest and first-ever Pangaon Inland Container Terminal remained idle for, at least, six months mainly due to lack of required shallow-draught vessels.
The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) is now procuring three vessels from China for the route as the private enterprises had failed to procure the same -- the task that was assigned nearly two years back to them to accomplish, by the department of shipping.
The vessels might reach Chittagong sometime this month (July).
Shamim-ul-Hoque, managing director of Maersk Line Bangladesh, said only three vessels for the new route are not enough to cope with the demand.
"Such a limited number of vessels for the route would be a major problem for making the terminal fully functional," he said while speaking at the programme.
Mr Hoque, also vice president of Bangladesh Container Shipping Association, said the volume of Dhaka-bound cargoes is bigger and the government move will help reduce the container-jam, both at Chittagong Port and the Dhaka Inland Container Depot.
Rashed A Ali, managing director of Tokyo-based NYK Bangladesh, said the security issue is very much important for the new route.
He said once the terminal becomes operational, it will be necessary to provide adequate security to avoid piracy.
Mr Ali said during the natural disasters, the vessels will have to anchor somewhere within 160 nautical miles, noting: "The vessels carrying containers might be attacked by the pirates."
He also said the three vessels might carry at best 250 containers. "If we declare Pangaon as a destination, then it might create another container snarl-up on the route."
Captain Rafiqul Islam, country chief of Singapore-based Pacific International Lines (PIL), said at least eight to ten vessels are required to transport Dhaka-bound containers.
He said: "We've heard that the port is procuring three vessels only."
Mr Islam said the future of the terminal will not look any way promising if the government does not take the move to raise the number of ships.
Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan said the government gave licences to the private entrepreneurs for procuring 36 vessels for the route earlier.
"The private entrepreneurs had failed to procure the same," he added.
However, the charge for carrying each 20-foot container has been set at Tk 9,500.
He also said it will take 16 hours to carry goods from the Chittagong-end.
The container terminal at Pangaon in Dhaka was built at a cost of Tk 1.54 billion. The CPA arranged the fund while the BIWTA (Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority) provided lands.
The terminal, built on an area of 33 acres of land, will have a capacity to handle 2,400 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) at a time.
The terminal is equipped to handle 116,000 containers annually.
The government built the inland container terminal at Pangaon of Keraniganj in Dhaka in 2000 mainly to ease the mounting pressure on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway.
Source: The Financial Express