Gateway Distriparks, which commissioned a 10,000 sq. ft. container freight station (CFS) close to the International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) here this week, will invest Rs.40 crore in a new C-TPAT-compliant warehousing facility at Kalamassery.
Director of Gateway Distriparks (Kerala) Limited (GDKL) Raghu Jayaram told The Hindu on Thursday that the company had acquired 20 acres at the strategically-located site, on the road linking NH 47 and the ICTT.
Investment
The new facility is being planned taking into consideration that ICTT has the potential to grow into India’s busiest container cargo hubs in the country, targeting to handle around seven lakh TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit) of box cargo in the first phase. ICTT was commissioned on February 11, 2011, by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He said that GDKL had invested Rs.60 crore in land acquisition and in setting up the CFS facility in the first phase of its projects linked to the ICTT in Kochi.
The proposed Kalamassery facility will take GDKL investments here to Rs.100 crore.
The company official said that auditing for C-TPAT compliance certification of the newly-commissioned CFS on Vallarpadam Island was underway. Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) is a voluntary cooperation between the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and businesses in ensuring cargo security and preventing terror attacks using the global supply chain.
Mr. Jayaram said that the new project, with its substantial land area, would help the company establish a 50,000-75,000 sq. ft. facility against the 10,000-sq. ft. facility on Vallarpadam Island where the company has leased 6.5 acres from Cochin Port Trust. GDKL is a subsidiary of Gateway Distriparks and a joint venture between GDL and Kochi-based Chakiat Agencies.
The new CFS has storage facilities to handle around 4,000 TEUs of cargo a month.
