High costs blamed for weak coastal shipping in state

Though coastal shipping has got several advantages and is one of the cheapest modes of transportation, experts point out several factors that impede this form of shipping in the state. Ports director Jacob Thomas has said among the various factors that act as hurdles to coastal shipping in the state are poor infrastructure, high labour charge for cargo handling and unavailability of vessels despite incentives declared for the sector.

 “Lack of vessels is the symptom of an issue. It is not easy to get loans for buying vessels or ships as in the case for purchasing trucks or other vehicles. Morover, we do not have a ship-building industry in India. If this is overcome,  the difficulty to get vessels will not be a problem,’’ said Jacob Thomas.

 As per the declared incentive, for transporting cargo weighing 10,000 tonnes from Beypore to Mangalore port, covering a distance of around 210 kilometres - the ship owner or agent will get Rs 21 lakh as incentive in addition to the payment he gets for transporting the cargo.

 However, Port Directorate has not received even a single application so far despite this incentive, mainly due to  high labour costs and poor infrastructure of ports in the state. Jacob Thomas said that high labour charge in ports is the key reason why the State Government has not even received a single application from industrialists or ship agents for coastal shipping.  “The high labour charge in Kerala is the major reason why many ship-owners avoid Kerala ports. Many are reluctant to visit ports in the state when there are many other ports in neighbouring states having very less labour charges. To bring a change in this situation, a meeting was convened in February this year with the participation of Labour Minister Shibu Baby John and workers’ unions. However, there has been no concrete outcome so far,” he said.

It is due to high labour charge that the number of ships visiting Kerala ports came down drastically and ports which were once thriving have now become rather inactive. Many companies which earlier imported cargo through Kerala ports are no more in the scene. Traders too have moved to Mangalore and Chennai ports to avoid high labour charges.

 All ports outside the state and Kochi port follow Tariff Authority of India’s labour charges for handling cargo and minor ports in Kerala do not follow any fixed charge system.  As per the Tariff Authority of India’s labour charge, one trader needs to pay only .360 percent of the total value of the cargo as labour charge. However, the labour charges in Kerala ports is Rs 4 to Rs 7 or above for every 50 kg of cargo depending upon the article.
Source: Express News Service