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Mumbai's Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust facilities hit by RTG drivers strike

MUMBAI's Gateway Terminals India, the largest container facility in the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust has been closed due to labour trouble for more than three days.

This has left carriers scrambling for alternative berthing options and shippers' with cargo stranded at the country's busiest container port.

Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, accounts for 60 per cent of total container cargo moving through India's 12 major public ports.

The turmoil, the latest in a series of disruptions at the port during the past year, followed a wage contract dispute between outsourced rubber-tyre gantry crane operators and its drivers.

There is absolutely no berth available in NSICT/NSIGT terminals (the two adjacent DP World facilities) and with apparently no solution in sight.

The strike is likely to go into this week, said Hong Kong Orient Overseas Container Liner (OOCL) in a notice to customers.

OOCL also said all Nhava Sheva-bound import cargo arriving on its services would be discharged at Colombo, Sri Lanka, until further notice.

In a notice to trade, United Arab Shipping Co (UASC) said the Al Bahia, voyage 1531N, operated in its Middle East-Indian subcontinent-North America (MINA) service, has been forced to omit the GTI call scheduled for August 7 because of the terminal shutdown.

"Terminal operations are at standstill and even NSICT (DP World Nhava Sheva) and JNPT (the port-owned terminal) approach roads are jammed. NSICT and JNPT berths are full and unable to accommodate more," said NYK.

Miles-long truck queues outside the other terminal gates risk bringing the port to the brink of gridlock, according to shipping and trade sources.

"The truck traffic situation on roads leading to the port terminals is very alarming," an official at warehouse services provider Gateway Distriparks said.

"This not the first strike at GTI. It is a continuous experience at this terminal for more than a year that one branch of labour or transport goes on strike," said a member of the Mumbai and Nhava Sheva Ship Agents' Association said.

"While there is a valid collective bargaining agreement with the RTG operators, they are opposing the contracting system and had gone on a hunger strike on July 24," said APMT Mumbai.

"While they themselves had assured us they would ensure that port operations would not be disrupted, from 8am on July 31, they decided to resort to a go-slow action, thereby adversely impacting terminal operations," said the APMT official.