Mumbai: Fed up with the widespread hoarding of essential commodities, especially grains, the Transport Ministry has cleared the construction of a mega cold storage facility at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT).
The horticulture facility, which will come up on a 30-acre plot cleared by the Government of India at Nhava Sheva, will help store edible oil, pulses and grains coming into port in large quantity. It is believed that at times, citing lack of holding facility, consignments are held back at sea to influence prices.
The JNPT mainly gets cargo in chemicals, machinery, plastics, vegetables oil and pulses, which are at present stored in tank farms, a kind of temporary holding area in the open. “But we have been keen to construct a horticulture facility to store perishable commodities. Most of these are transported to North India and kept in the port for a long time. Therefore it was important to have such a facility,” said port chairman Anil Diggikar.
Last year, when the Maharashtra government had imposed a strict stock limit on the import of commodities, several ships were stranded at the port because traders feared offloading would violate the per trader stock limits. Customs had estimated as many as 8,000 pulse containers were held back and delayed by importers following massive raids by the State government. The action had caused pulse prices to shoot beyond a record Rs. 200.
The Mumbai Port Trust and the JNPT are the two main gateways of import into Maharashtra and North India.
Currently, after unloading, containers are kept at the 34 Container Freight Stations, which are out of the purview of the enforcement agencies. But under the new Direct Port Delivery (DPD) facility, import containers will directly be delivered to the consignee, whose background is vetted by enforcement agencies, Mr. Diggikar said.
