VASCO
A container ship OEL Colombo arrived at Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) on Saturday, fuelling speculation that the container feeder service, which was discontinued recently, is likely to resume in the near future.
According to sources, the ship has been called by the shipping agent Samsara Shipping Pvt Ltd operating at MPT for containers on MSC lines.
“The vessel handled 120 import containers and 60 export containers. This is the first inaugural call of the MSC Lines in Goa and Samsara Shipping Pvt Ltd is handling the vessel at MPT," said the source
"The vessel will leave the port early Sunday morning. The container vessel arrived for the MSC Lines company and will take their containers at MPT.”
“As of now, this vessel is dedicated for MSC containers. There is another ship operator which has plans to start the container feeder service and to send a vessel regularly to the MPT.”
“In case the other operator does not bring in their container ship to MPT, we can try and bring this ship regularly to MPT, maybe once in 15 days, after we succeed in handling our (MSC) containers here at MPT. This bi-monthly visit of this ship can be planned after September end onwards,” the source added.
It may be recalled that the 30-year-old container feeder service operating at MPT was abruptly stopped on August 3, after which a large number of stakeholders and industrial associations had submitted representations to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, union shipping, commerce and finance ministries and the Minister of State for Shipping Shripad Naik to intervene and resume the container feeder services.
The MPT later issued notices announcing trade discounts and waivers of various port-related charges for ship operators willing to start the container feeder service at the port.
