In a bid to facilitate easy movement of trailers at Chennai Port Trust (CPT) and to ease congestion in front of port gates, the port trust opened a checking facility near Ernavur bridge on Friday.
A 40-foot container has been turned into a checking booth, where officials from port pass section and two containers terminals would be present to verify various documents and issue passes to the drivers who are required to enter the Chennai port.
“The booth will help in reducing congestion at the port gate, as vehicles without proper documents could be stopped right away at Ernavur Bridge,” said CPT chairman
Atulya Misra.
“The new facility will reduce the time of checking at the port gate, where CISF have to check only a few documents. It will take not even a minute thereby assuring a free flow of traffic in to the port,’ said CPT deputy chairman P. C. Parida.
Mr Parida said the facility inaugurated by the CPT chairman on Thursday would start functioning in a day or two. “We are trying to find small solutions like this to aid import and export of goods at Chennai port,” he added.
“The new checking facility near Ernavur Bridge will ease congestion at the port gates and will help the trailer operators as well as the industry,” said Mr A. V. Vijayakumar, president of Chennai Customs House Clearance Agents Association.
It may be noted that the port had faced severe congestion problems for the past one year affecting the EXIM trade. In the last two weeks alone, the operations at the container terminals came to a standstill due to two different incidents where the trailer drivers and owners started a strike respectively.
While CISF foiled an attempt to steal a container out of the port two weeks back that led to arrest of a trailer driver, on Wednesday, a CISF head constable was forced to manhandle a transport company official after he failed to stop at the gate and rode on a motorcycle in to the port from a gate that was specifically meant for trailer access.