Port Nehru to Relent on Fees Accrued During Shutdown

India's Port of Jawaharlal Nehru (Nhava Sheva) said it will consider "justifiable" requests from users for waiver of charges accrued on the traffic affected by the recent port shutdown and restricted operations.

The port authority's response came at a recent meeting to review operational and infrastructure issues with stakeholders following the MSC Chitra-Khalijia-3 collision in the main harbor channel Aug. 7.

"The cases pertaining to service charges including dwell-time charges will be looked into on a case-to-case basis. Port users, who feel that there should be a waiver of charges, should apply individually and each case will be considered on its merits," N.N. Kumar, the JNPT chairman, told user representatives.

By The Numbers: U.S. Container Trade With India.

Addressing the meeting, the chairman said the abrupt disruptions that lasted almost a month caused massive financial losses for the port and the trade in general with potential adverse impact on business targets.

Officials of the two private container terminals, owned and managed by APM Terminals and DP World, said they had reservations about the proposals to allow waiver on such charges, citing their "dissimilar" volume-based contracts with individual shipping lines.

Local ship agents, under the aegis of the Mumbai-Nhava Sheva Ship Agents' Association, earlier lodged official requests with port management and private terminal authorities, seeking waiver on additional vessel-related and cargo-related charges.

The chairman also apprised stakeholders of the progress on various capacity improvement plans, including the acquisition of new handling equipment and development of a fourth container terminal through private participation.

Nehru handles nearly 65 percent of India's total containerized traffic, having racked up throughput of 4.06 million 20-foot equivalent units in fiscal 2009-10.