A sudden strike by container truck drivers Monday morning paralyzed cargo movements to and from India’s Port of Chennai, the country’s second-largest container gateway.
The Trailer Owners’ Association is protesting poor approach road conditions following recent heavy monsoon rains and persistent delays in commissioning the long-awaited Ennore-Manali road improvement project.
“The strike has resulted in a total stoppage of all export-import movements with more than 1,000 vehicles stranded outside the dock,” a shipping line agent at Chennai said.
The agent said containers had begun piling up in the port area, and could seriously congest operations at the two terminals if trucking operations are not restored immediately.
The agent said containers had begun piling up in the port area, and could seriously congest operations at the two terminals if trucking operations are not restored immediately.
Latest reports said despite two rounds of talks between the truck owner-operator group and port-terminal officials, no settlement was reached late Tuesday.
The Confederation of Surface Transport, representing all transport companies in the state, also threatened an indefinite strike starting Nov. 22 over the same issues.
Chennai has two terminals: DP World-managed Chennai Container Terminal and the Chennai International Terminals operated by Singapore’s PSA International. The southeastern hub handled 1.22 million 20-foot equivalent units in fiscal 2009-10 ended March 31 and 891,000 TEUs from April through October, the first seven months of 2010-11.
A planned 4-million-TEU deep-water facility, for which bidding is underway, will boost Chennai’s capacity to over 6 million TEUs a year.