The Water Transport Cell (WTC) has increased the supply of Lighter Vessels for unloading goods from mother vessels at the outer anchorage of Chittagong Port. Over the last four days, they supplied, on an average, 30 vessels against a demand of 40–55 vessels a day to unload goods from mother vessels. Earlier, the WTC was unable to provide more than 14 vessels a day, resulting in a huge congestion of vessels bringing imported goods at outer anchorage of Chittagong port.

The WTC move to increase the supply of Lighter Vessels followed the publication of a report by The Independent, titled “Unloading ‘crippled’ in Ctg port: Importers blame artificial shortage of lighter vessels”, on January 3. The WTC has increased the number of vessels supplied to importers who do not make the craft wait needlessly in the name of unloading.  

WTC said they had increased pressure on large companies to unload their goods and has stopped allocating vessels to those who allegedly use Lighter Vessels as floating warehouses.

 Tinku Paul, manager, operations, WTC, said, “We are no more allocating any vessels to the companies that keep the

Lighter Vessels beyond the time limit. If anyone unloads goods readily, we have no problem, but we have stopped the allocation vessels especially for raw sugar.”

After unloading goods from mother vessels to Lighter Vessels, many big companies allegedly keep the smaller craft waiting at different ‘ghats’ for several days, while they look for customers to sell the goods directly from the lighter vessels. This practice has contributed to the shortage of lighter vessels.

Mahabub Rashid Khan, executive director, WTC, said, “Businessmen have a tendency to sell goods like wheat, rice, coal, atone, and lentils from Lighter Vessels directly, without keeping them in warehouses. The shortages of warehouses, ‘ghats’ are also responsible for increasing the turnaround time of Lighter Vessels, thus causing a bottleneck in their supply.”

Referring to the shortage of lighter vessels, Altaf Hossain Bachchu, general secretary of Chittagong Customs Clearing & Forwarding Agents Association, praised the WTC decision and said the report carried by The Independent brought to light some specific problems.

“The report of The Independent has revealed the specific problems and exposed the fact that some importers are using the Lighter Vessels as floating warehouses. It is the good decision of the WTC to not provide lighter vessels to the companies who are using vessels as floating warehouses.”

“But the authorities concerned should take stern measure to stop such practices and also give permission for new vessels and renovate the ports,” he added.

Meanwhile, About 7,000 MT of wheat has so far been unloaded from the Ship MV Doric Victory which was waiting at outer anchorage along with 22,340 MT of wheat for Rohingyas.

“Following the publishing of The Independent report, the authorities concerned took initiatives to assign lighter vessels and unload the wheat that came for Rohingya refugees,” said Mohi Uddin Ahmed Chowdhury, Inspector of Food (Shipping) officer of the Controller of Movement &Storage Ministry of Food & Disaster Management.

BCIC sources also said that the WTC increased supplying lighter vessels to them to expedite unloading fertilizers from the outer-anchorage.

“After it came to the notice of the authorities concerned that mother vessels are floating at outer anchorage with fertilizers of BCIC, the WTC is now supplying adequate vessels to the BCIC in the last four days. Now BCIC has no crisis of Lighter vessels for unloading fertilizers,” said Abu Bakar Siddique, enlisted C&F agent of BCIC.