Ctg port still reels from workers' strike

The stalemate over unloading and transportation of goods at Chittagong Port drags on as a majority of lighter vessel workers continued their indefinite strike yesterday.
Following directives from the shipping ministry, Bangladesh Shipping Corporation (BSC) yesterday sent its vessel Banglar Mamata to the outer anchorage for unloading goods from the mother vessels anchored there.
Five more BSC vessels would be engaged in the job within a week to ease transportation of goods, BSC Managing Director Commodore Moqsudul Qader told The Daily Star.
The state-run organisation will also hire lighter vessels, he added.
On Tuesday, Shipping Minister Shahjahan Khan held a meeting with the leaders of Bangladesh Cargo Vessel Owners Association (BCVOA) and Coastal Ship Owners Association of Bangladesh (COAB) at his secretariat office to end the strike. Later, the minister met some industry owners, but both the meetings ended inconclusively.
Workers enforced the strike on April 4 demanding security in inland waterways and an increase in their wages by 20 percent according to the decision of a tri-party meeting between vessel owners, workers and the shipping minister on January 11.
However, workers of some 150 lighter vessels owned by different industries joined work on April 10 midnight after a meeting between Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) and Bangladesh Noujan Sramik Federation on that day. They are already receiving the increased wages.
Yesterday evening, 34 mother (cargo) vessels were anchored at the outer anchorage of the port and in deep sea at Kutubdia with over 13 lakh tonnes of goods, mostly commodity items, said port sources.
A total of 261 lighter vessels with around 2.80 lakh tonnes of goods remained stranded on the waterways and at different private ghats across the country due to the strike till yesterday, said sources at the Water Transport Cell (WTC), an organisation that coordinates lighter vessels owned by BCVOA and COAB.
Owners of each of the mother vessels are charged $15000 as “fixed operating cost” daily for overstay, said Kamal Hayat, senior vice-president of Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association.
Leaders of BCVOA and COAB claimed that they had incurred losses for months as the industrial group owners had been unloading goods by using their (industry owners') own vessels.
BCVOA President Mahbub Uddin Ahmad said they wanted all the vessel owners to be registered with the WTC, which would distribute the cargoes to the vessel owners. But the industrial group owners opposed the idea.