Ctg port takes a hit from hartal

Activities at Chittagong Port slowed to a crawl in the last three days due to a countrywide shutdown.
During hartal, the delivery of products experienced a sharp decline, although the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) took steps to keep the port up and running round the clock to ensure safe passage for imported goods.
Around 500 trucks and container carriers laden with imported goods left the port on Monday, down from the daily average of 2,500 trucks and carriers, according to data from the CPA.
On the first day of the three-day hartal, the number of such vehicles was nearly 350, while yesterday's number was also small.
Only 276 TEUs (twenty equivalent units) of containers laden with imported goods were delivered in the last 24 hours till 8am yesterday while the number reached 202 TEUs in the same period on Monday.
Mentionable, 1,320 TEUs of import containers were delivered in 24 hours till Saturday morning, the day before the hartal began. And nearly 5,163 TEUs of import containers were unloaded in the jetties from the vessels in the last three days till 8am yesterday.
Due to such slow pace in delivery, the number of lying containers in port yards, having capacity to store 30,000 TEUs of containers, touched 22,274 TEUs yesterday.
Officials at CPA's traffic department, however, hoped that the situation would start improving by yesterday evening as the clearing and forwarding agents had already completed all procedures to get delivery of imported goods of 1,156 TEUs of containers by yesterday afternoon.
Trucks and carriers were waiting inside the port to start leaving with goods after the hartal hour yesterday.
Many C&F agents were preparing to submit documents to get delivery of goods by yesterday as the importers failed to get delivery of their goods during hartals for lack of vehicular movement, CPA Secretary Syed Farhad Uddin Ahmed told The Daily Star yesterday.
Handling of goods in the port was also hampered during the shutdowns, Ahmed said.
A total of 1,338 TEUs of export containers could be shipped to vessels in 24 hours until 8am yesterday while the figure was 2,644 TEUs in the same period till Sunday before the shutdown began.
Port users could not transport export goods, mostly readymade garments, to the port due to the shutdown.
The port authority had earlier planned to cancel leave of all officials and staffs of the CPA to keep the port running during the shutdown.
A CPA official designated to ensure the port's security said they took assistance from police and Border Guard Bangladesh to ensure safe movement of export containers from different private off-docks to the port overnight.
On Monday, two container vessels -- Ocean Arrow and Sinar Subang with 685 TEUs and 870 TEUs export containers respectively -- left the port, according to the CPA officials.
Beside the port jetties, unloading of goods at outer anchorage was going on, port officials said. Around 28,000 tonnes of goods, including food grain, fertiliser, sugar, salt and cement clinker, were unloaded from 11 vessels anchored at the outer anchorage.
Hartal hampered production in garment factories, as the factory owners failed to get delivery of imported raw materials from the port in time, said BGMEA First Vice President Nasir Uddin Chowdhury.