Ctg port to face container congestion due to rail strike

Chattogram port is going to face container and cargo congestion as movement of all freight trains from the port remained suspended from early today following a countrywide strike enforced by Bangladesh Railway train crew.

Two freight trains, including a container train and oil wagon train, were scheduled to leave the port for Dhaka and Sylhet respectively since early today but they did not due to the strike, said Abdul Malek, master of the Chattogram Goods Port Yard (CGPY) of Bangladesh Railway.

A total of 62 TEUs of import laden containers and 17 wagons of oil were on board those two trains were scheduled to depart at 2:00am and 9:30am today, he added.

Around 96 percent of import and export containers are transported to and from the port though roads while only three percent are carried by railway.

At least four container trains leave the port daily for Kamalapur Inland Container Depot (ICD) in Dhaka. But due to shortage of locomotives, the railway authority has been running two to three trains per day for several weeks.

Due to this low train movement over the last few weeks, there is already a backlog of containers in Chattogram.

The port's designated yard has a capacity of storing 876 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) containers.

Till today, a total of 1049 TEUs of such containers were lying in the designated yard, exceeding the capacity, according to data from Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) traffic department.

A veteran freight forwarder said due to the train low number of trains, containers unloaded on January 16 got serial to load on trains yesterday [January 27] with a lag of 11 days.

As train movement was suspended due to the strike, the backlog would become acute from tomorrow, he told The Daily Star.

CPA Secretary Md Omar Faruk said the situation is yet to get worse as the port can accommodate more containers.

During normal operation the railway can move over 180 TEUs to Dhaka.

CPA officials said a total of 176 Dhaka-bound containers were unloaded from vessels in the last 24 hours till 8:00am today.