Seaways Group, the shipping and logistics service provider, has introduced west coast container feeder service m.v. Kinship Bangar. The vessel will connect New Mangalore Port to Jawaharlal Nehru Port.

A press release from Mr S. Gopalakrishna, Traffic Manager of New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT), said here that the vessel with a capacity of 354 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) came from JNPT for loading export containers. The frequency of the vessel will be once in eight days.

The vessel has 85 reefer points which is specially designed for handling reefer cargo from the west coast. Seaways Shipping Ltd is the feeder operator/agent and HML Agencies is the stevedores, it said.

Mr Arvind Singh, Commissioner of Customs, Mangalore, and Mr M.A. Bhaskarachar, Deputy Chairman of NMPT, flagged off the service from New Mangalore Port on September 15.

CONTAINER TRAFFIC

There is an increase in the container traffic in New Mangalore Port during the current fiscal.

Till the end of August, the port handled 8,128 TEUs of containers as against 6,139 TEUs in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, recording a growth of 32.42 per cent.

The port is gearing up to handle more containers. One reach stacker with a capacity of 45 tonnes has already been procured and put into operation in addition to 104-tonne capacity mobile crane.

Order has also been placed for procurement of one more reach stacker.

Quoting Mr P. Tamilvanan, Chairman of NMPT, the release said that the new feeder connection will give a boost to the container traffic at NMPT in the coming days.

He requested exporters and importers to make use of the increased frequency of container vessels at the port.

So far there was only one container feeder line — Bengal Tiger Lines — operating through the port.

The feeder vessel, m.v. Kinship Bangar, is an Indian flag vessel that has own gears to handle loading and unloading.

Another press release by Seaways said that it is already operating container feeder services on the east coast as well as connecting Chittagong.

Recently the group extended the east coast Service to Singapore and Port Klang, it added.