In order to expand containerised traffic between the coast and the hinterland, the Container Corporation of India (Concor) has acquired the railway siding infrastructure of KIOCL located at the New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT).
KIOCL, under the Ministry of Steel, built a four full-line (900 m each) railway siding on New Mangalore Port Trust’s premises in 2004 to handle iron ore exports at a cost of about Rs. 140 million (1.9 million euros). The company has now sold the siding to Concor for the same amount. Besides the railway siding, Concor would also get about 47,000 sq m adjacent NMPT land to provide a warehousing facility.
The State government was keen on having an inland container depot in Mangaluru to boost containerised exports/imports through trains thereby reducing traffic on roads. There was a great demand for containerised transport for coffee, finished goods and other products between the coast and the hinterland. Concor plans to run at least 10 container trains a month initially out of Mangaluru, Concor Group General Manager, Karnataka, Anup Dayanand Sadhu, said.
The siding would enable Concor to handle this traffic even as the Indian Railways has permitted to run container trains on Mangaluru-Hassan line with load up to 80 TEUs of container on one rake.
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