Importers suffer for a dearth of lighters at Ctg port

A shortage of lighter vessels at the Chittagong port along with landing stations is causing importers to pay extra charges and demurrages, forcing consumers to ultimately bear the costs.

Importers say Water Transport Cell, comprising owners of these vessels of capacities ranging from 800 to 3,000 tonnes, does not have sufficient watercrafts.

There are around 900 such ships engaged in unloading 70 percent of imported bulk cargo such as foodgrains, fertilisers, steel, cement and ceramics, from mother vessels at the outer anchorage.

The vessels then travel to 39 destinations, including Chittagong, Nagarbari, Baghabari, Narayanganj, Keraniganj, Meghna, Kanchpur, Rupganj, Bhairab, Barisal, Bhola and Faridpur and use some 200 private landing stations.

According to yesterday's port data, there are 102 mother vessels with around 25 lakh tonnes of goods at the outer anchorage.

One of them is Filia Glory that arrived from Ukraine on August 30 with 54,000 tonnes of wheat. Till yesterday, 26,440 tonnes of wheat could be unloaded.

The importer, Abul Bashar Chowdhury, chairman of BSM Group, told The Daily Star that the unloading would have been complete by yesterday had there been an adequate number of lighter vessels. 

He said the ship operator would now begin charging $10,000 every day for overstay.

Meanwhile, a portion of the wheat was still to reach dry land as the 16 private landing stations at Banglabazar and Majhirghat areas already had 142 lighter vessels queued up to be unloaded, he added.

This means the lighter vessels will also count demurrages, he said.

According to data from the cell, 556 vessels were waiting to unload with 7.62 lakh tonnes of goods at 36 destinations till Saturday. Another 14 were loading goods at the outer anchorage, 42 en route to some points and 125 being repaired at docks.

Of the 556, four with wheat were waiting to unload for over 90 days, 31 with steel scraps for over 30 days, 75 with raw materials like ball clay, stone and foodgrains for over a month and 50 with foodgrains, stone and fertiliser for over 35 days.

The cell officials said a sudden increase in import of different items like foodgrains and stone as well as an extended rainy season hampered unloading of goods.

The cell co-convener, Nurul Hoque, said they have enough vessels. He accused importers such as City Group for keeping the vessels engaged for long periods, even for up to two months.

Some of the importers use the vessels as a temporary warehouse, said Hoque, also the general secretary of Bangladesh Cargo Vessel Owners Association (BCVOA).

“As our vessels are not emptied timely...we are failing to provide those for lightering again,” he said.

On September 13, the cell was able to provide only 63 vessels against the day's demand for 150, sources said.

City Group General Manager Biswajit Saha said none of their chartered vessels were kept engaged for so long.

He said the fare multiplied for each day past the chartered ones while demurrages also had to be paid. He emphasised building more vessels and landing stations equipped with cranes and other facilities.

Construction of lighter vessels remained almost stopped for around two years as the Department of Shipping through a circular on December 1, 2015 stopped approving designs citing that a downtrend in import.

The decision was withdrawn recently.

Department of Shipping's Director General Syed Ariful Islam said they decided to approve new designs on a “need basis” upon request from the chairman of the Chittagong Port Authority and businesses.