Clearance at Walayar faster than Chennai

Kochi: The time taken for clearance of vehicles at the border check post at Walayar  is much less compared to that in Chennai and Coimbatore,  according to  Cochin Port Trust chairman Paul Antony.

He told  an interactive session with the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry that  check posts in Chennai and Coimbatore took two days for clearance compared to an average of seven hours at  Walayar.

Stressing the need for business persons from Kerala to come back to  Cochin port for their business instead of depending on ports in other states, Mr. Antony said that access to Cochin port through road would improve in the coming days.

The road usage in the state is based on the survey held in 1985 and the situation had undergone  drastic changes.

The state government had constituted a panel to study the transport facilities  and suggested  remedies for the outdated road transport usage norms, he said.

The report by the panel is expected to improve the access to road facilities to the port, he added.   

The new land policy of Cochin port allows every individual business to lease land and properties directly from the port instead of sub-leasing from a land owner. This means that the same businesses that were using sub-leased lands will now have to pay only half the price.

Mr. Antony, however, regretted the recent incident in which a 30,000-tonnes  wheat vessel was forced to leave the port due to non-availability workers to offload the cargo. 

Describing the incident as a shame, he said vessels involving manual handling of cargo would not  come to the port due to such attitude. “It is a disgrace to put the dignity of the port at stake,”  he said.