Exports hampered due to non-movement of containers by train from Ludhiana to ports

Ludhiana: Upkar Singh Ahuja, President and Pankaj Sharma, General Secretary, Chamber of Industrial and Commercial Undertakings (CICU) in a press statement jointly said that the container train movement from Ludhiana to the ports has been seriously hampered due to ongoing agitation by the Farmers. It has already been 5 days and it's brewing into a disaster for the exports. The shipments have been delayed and exporters are fearing cancelation of orders due to above plus the sudden increase of ocean freight and other expenses are adding to the losses and mental agony of exporters.

It is a known fact that the major commodities contributing to Imports into Ludhiana are metal scrap and waste paper for 20’ and 40’ containers respectively. Metal Scrap 20’ containers from Dubai dried up due to ban on export by the originating/supplier country due to onset of Covid, which now seems to be picking up slowly. The Import of waste paper in 40’ containers too had a steep fall due to covid for various reasons. Consequently, exports are either waiting patiently for the empty inventory or are forced to reposition the empty containers from Delhi or Mundra at an additional cost of Rs, 20,000 and Rs. 30,000 respectively per container.

Sarvjit Singh, Co-convener, CICU Export Promotion Committee added that during the covid-19 lockdown period shipping lines have withdrawn vessels fearing less cargo which has resulted in congestion at major transit ports like Salalah, Colombo and Singapore, even the empty containers from Delhi and mudra ports are also not coming due to ongoing agitation by Farmers.
He also added that Industry is facing a huge deficit of containers due to imbalance in Import and exports at Ludhiana. In addition to the Covid crisis being responsible for the present situation, Mr. Sarvjit also cited India-china border dispute as another reason for low inflow of imports that impacted the availability of empty inventory of containers at Ludhiana. 

CICU wrote a request Letter to PMO, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of MSME, Ministry of Finance to highlight the hardships faced by exporters and requesting their immediate intervention to save the exporters fraternity.