Gadkari digitally flags off steel consignment from Vizag Port through coastal shipping

November 2, 2017: The Minister of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways, Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation Nitin Gadkari digitally flagged off a consignment of 230,000 tonnes of steel cargo from Vizag port to Kochi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad through coastal shipping route. Chaudhary Birendra Singh, Union Minister of Steel was also present at Vizag Port.

Speaking on the occasion the Minister informed that Rastriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) was till now transporting its products to 22 stockyards through road and rail mode. Coastal transportation of these products will now help save 380 million tonnes kilometer of rail transportation per annum and bring down logistics costs, he said. This is especially significant since RINL has doubled its production capacity to 6.3 million tonnes per annum, and to cater to the increased volumes it is important to economise on transportation costs to be globally competitive. The Minister further urged all other manufactures to make use of coastal shipping for transporting goods as this can be a key enabler for reduction of logistics cost for domestic and EXIM trade of India.

Coastal movement has been on RINL’s radar for a long time because of its proximity to the ports and to ease the pressure from the over optimised road and rail systems. RINL recently finalised a one-year multimodal transportation contract covering end to end logistics from plant at Visakhapatnam to its stockyards at Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Kochi. The Rs 75 crore annual contract has been awarded to the consortium led by Shreyas Shipping & Logistics, a member of Transworld Group, Dubai. The contract involves taking delivery of material from plant, shifting by road to VPT (Visakhapatnam Port Trust) or GPL (Gangavaram Port Limited), shipping the material by sea to a port near the stockyard and finally delivering the material to RINL stockyard. The quantities expected to be transported are 90,000 tonnes, 75,000 tonnes and 60,000 tonnes to Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Kochi stockyards respectively.

Movement of cargo through coastal shipping has inherent advantages over land modes of transport such as road and rail as it is more cost effective, causes much less pollution, reduces congestion on land and can cater to huge parcel sizes.