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Cover Story
Ports & Terminals

While the event raised questions on
the relevance of CFS moving forward,
George Joseph, president of Container
Freight Station Association of India
(CFSAI) defended it by explaining the
nature of the CFS business and the value
it adds to its customers.
“Unlike the containers that come to
the CPP which are already examined and
have no further process left, exporters
use CFS as a place to consolidate their
cargo. The shipper gives the go-ahead
depending on various factors including
the sailing of the vessels. The flexibility
offered by CFS is one of its uses. It gives
the exporter time to plan their cargo.
On the import side also, it is as per the
importer’s convenience and his inventory
planning,” he said.
Manish Jaiswal, president of Portall
Infosystems, which won the tender
for developing National Logistics
Portal Marine (NLP Marine) last year,
encountered the question of how NLP
Marine will help the maritime industry
to reduce logistics costs and be more
efficient. He explained the history of port
community systems (PCS) in India which cost: the dependency on road mode for
started 14 years back. He called NLP the connectivity and the location of industrial
natural next stage of PCS with different production houses far away from ports.
requirements as PCS was driven ports “As of date, the modal mix is
and NLP is by the trade. skewed towards the road traffic with
“Requirements of trade are a 34 percent share. The distance that
completely different from that of what the cargo is expected to travel in
ports were doing. The need for data on India till the port is around 500 km on
demand is higher in trade. Trade wants average because the industries are not
to know what is happening. At every located close to the coastal region but
stage, they want to know where is the deeper in the hinterland. However, in
cargo. Thus NLP Marine is not just going the next 25 years, with an emphasis
to integrate with 10 or 15 but hundreds of on port-led industrialization, growth
port community systems,” he said. of inland waterways and the railway
He noted that he was dealing with capacity augmentation, the share of
many countries for national single the road is expected to come down
windows and none of them has it but With the emphasis drastically,” he said.
there are port-specific single windows. on port-led One thing that is more than evident
“We are fortunate to have a single is how both the Indian government in
window across the country. The data industrialization, inland terms of policy and the private sector
on these platforms will serve three waterways and rail in terms of business priorities, are
purposes. These are reactive, proactive capacity, the share of consciously trying to bring changes in
and predictive data,” he said. the road is expected to the way India moves goods. And from
One major focus of all policy changes come down drastically. any standard, it is clear that maritime
in the country is the higher logistics logistics is at the centre of how India
costs and their share in the total GDP P.L Haranadh envisions its multimodal future. Road
of India. P.L Haranadh, chairman Paradip Port Authority infrastructure projects, rail projects
of Paradip Port Authority, who also like the dedicated freight corridors,
took additional charge as chairman Multimodal Maritime Regional Summit incentives like PLIS and SEZs
of Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, in Bhubaneswar. From the maritime supporting port-led industrialization
Kolkata, made an observation about logistics perspective, he noted that there all lead towards connecting to its
the same in November 2022 during the are two factors that increase the logistics maritime infrastructure. 
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