Three vessels procured by the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) for transportation of goods on the Chittagong-Pangaon route have remained idle for more than four months due to lack of cargoes.
The Pangaon Container Terminal (CT) was built jointly by the CPA and the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) at a cost of Tk 1.54 billion on the bank of the Buriganga river at Pangaon in south Keraniganj.
The terminal in Dhaka has virtually remained non-functional as the port users have been avoiding it on some grounds including lack of P&I (protection and indemnity) coverage.
The terminal was formally launched on November 07 last.
However, the CPA procured the three vessels from China and Indonesia at a cost of more than Tk 1.20 billion.
So far only 60 TEUs (20-foot equivalent units) were brought to the terminal from Chittagong.
Many insiders said the vessels built in early 1990s are now weighing heavily on the port authority.
"The CPA bought these vessels to provide services and earn money, but in reality, they are now consuming money," noted a senior official of a shipping firm.
The three vessels are the Pangaon Express, the Pangaon Success and the Pangaon Vision.
However, the Ministry of Shipping and the CPA have taken a number of steps including meetings with the mainline operators to popularise the route among the port users with no positive outcome.
Official sources at Pangaon told the FE Saturday that they were expecting 'good movement' of cargoes between Chittagong and Pangaon from the middle of April next.
"We're expecting good transportation on the new route from the middle of next month," said Md Sarwar, manager at the Pangaon terminal.
Mr. Sarwar said each week two vessels will leave Pangaon with export cargoes and the same number of vessels will arrive at the terminal each week after April 15.
"This is my assumption and this is based on conversations I had with the consignees," Mr. Sarwar told the FE.
On the other hand, a number of representatives of the mainline operators said the Pangaon terminal will not be operationalised shortly.
They also said what Pangaon is expecting from the middle of April is nothing but 'merchant hauling.'
Merchant hauling means cargo transportation from one port to another by any mode of transportation.
They said as long as the importers will not mention Pangaon as the port of destination, it will remain virtually non-operational.
"The bill of lading must be issued from the Pangaon terminal if any export cargo leaves from the terminal", said one senior official at a mainline operator in the city.
