Indian Railways yesterday (13 Apr’16) withdrew the levy of the port congestion surcharge, which is 10% of the basic freight.
“In order to attract imported freight traffic, including containers, coal, iron ore, the railways has decided to withdraw the levy of port congestion surcharge with immediate effect,” said railway spokesperson Mr. Anil Saxena.
He said the demand in this regard had been raised by the ministries of shipping and ports and steel and also by container operators and other industries.
“This will give a big boost to national industrial growth. The surcharge withdrawn was 10% of basic freight and its withdrawal will generate about 15 MnT of incremental traffic,” he added.
What is port congestion surcharge?
Indian Railways introduced congestion surcharge of 10% on the base freight rate w.e.f 24 Nov’14. The surcharge introduced earlier is leviable on all goods traffic, including containers originating at ports.
Port congestion surcharge would be levied on import containers carried on rail from ports namely Mundra, Pipavav & Nhava Sheva Port to all Gateway Rail ICDs located at Garhi Harsaru, Faridabad, and Sahnewal.
Major relief to coal and iron ore importers
It is to be noted that Mundra is the largest coal handling port in India and 31.16 Mnt (14% share in FY16 coal imports) coal was handled at Mundra port in FY16. Talking of iron ore, Mundra port stood fifth in the list of port wise iron ore import and handeled 0.4 MnT iron ore cargoes in FY16.
-Sourced
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