Goemkarponn Desk
A container ship OEL Colombo on staurday arrived at Mormugao Port Trust ( MPT ) fuelling speculations that the abruptly stopped container feeder service was likely to resume at MPT
According to information available from sources , the ship has been called by the shipping agent Samsara Shipping Pvt Ltd operating at MPT for handling containers of MSC lines.
” The vessel will leave the port early morning of Sunday .The container vessel has arrived for the MSC Lines company and will take handle containers at MPT . This vessel as of now is dedicated only for MSC containers There is yet another ship operator with plans to start the container feeder service and put a vessel at MPT regularly but they are facing an issue of Volume that can be handled at MPT. In case the other operator does not bring in their container ship to MPT, we can try to bring this ship regularly to MPT, maybe once in 15 days after we succed to handle our (MSC) containers here at MPT . This bi monthly call of this ship can be planned September end onwards. The vessel will handled 120 import containers and 60 export containers at MPT . This is the first inaugural call of the MSC Lines in Goa and Samsara Shipping Pvt Ltd is handling the vessel at MPT as their shipping agent ” said the source
It may be recalled that the 30 year old container feeder service operating at MPT was abruptly stopped on 3rd August after which a large number of stakeholders and industrial associations had submitted a representation to Union shipping, commerce and Finance ministries and also to minister of state Shipping Shripaf Naik and requested the CM Dr Pramod Sawant to intervene to resume the container feeder services
MPT later had issued trade notices announces trade discounts and waivers of various port related charges for ship operators willing to start the service in MPT .
