India to manufacture containers in Bhavnagar, eyes Rs 1,000 cr investment

Eyeing indigenous production of containers amid a global surge in demand, the Centre is looking to develop Bhavnagar in Gujarat as a container hub and has set up pilot projects for its manufacturing, Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said.

The initiative aimed at attaining self-reliance in container production eyes Rs 1,000 crore investment from private players and looks to create one lakh jobs.

The move assumes significance amid reports of global shortages of containers with Indian containerised trade taking a hit owing to the staggered supply and demand shocks across geographies as per logistic majors.

The Ministry of shipping during the last six months has taken several initiatives to encourage container production at Bhavnagar with the help of re-rolling and furnace makers who are being encouraged to diversify in the space.

"We expect private players to invest about Rs 1,000 crore in this space. We also expect creation of one lakh local jobs," the minister said.The intiative has been taken to realise the dream of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat', Mandaviya ..

There had been reports recently that non-availability of containers has resulted in air-lifting of cargo by some players. As per the ports apex body IPA, container cargo handling has been on decline at 12 major ports with the just concluded fiscal recording 2.13 per cent decline in container cargo tonnage to 143.74 million tonnes as against 146.84 MT in 2019-2020.

The Indian Ports Association (IPA) in its latest report also said that container cargo in terms of TEUs

(twenty foot eq)

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"India requires about 3.5 lakh containers every year.There is no container production in India and we have to depend mainly on China which is a global producer.