Thoothukudi
A memorandum of understanding was signed between the V.O. Chidambaranar Port Trust and the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) to facilitate direct port entry (DPE) of cargo on Monday, which would help cut down on dwell time and costs.
Chairman of V.O.C Port Trust T.K. Ramachandran and Managing Director of CWC Arun Kumar Shrivastava signed the MoU that would allow the CWC to operate and manage the truck terminal located opposite to the Fisheries College and Research Institute on an annual lease rental basis for 30 years. The terminal has an area of 18,357 sqm.
The DPE facility would be created at the terminal to enable direct movement of containers from factories without intermediate handling at any container freight station, allowing shippers to bring their factory-stuffed (self-sealed) goods directly to the container terminal round the clock.
At present, the factory stuffed containers are taken to any of the 15 Container Freight Stations (CFSs) and one Inland Container Depot operated in Thoothukudi, which may cause delay. Except one container freight station, others do not operate round the clock.
Mr. Ramachandran said that the DPE facility would benefit exporters by speeding up the flow of cargo across various logistics service providers, and help bring down the cost and dwell time of export containers.
