Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A, the world’s biggest container shipping line, has started a feeder service linking Haldia Dock Complex of state-owned Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port Authority with the newly opened container transshipment terminal run by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd at Vizhinjam in Kerala. The containers originating and bound for Kolkata/Haldia trade were earlier transshipped through Colombo port, a regional transshipment hub. The service to be run every ten days is the first feeder service to be launched between an Indian gateway port and the Vizhinjam transshipment port after India constructed a transshipment facility to cut dependence on Colombo port for sending and receiving containers. The ‘Haldia Shuttle’ service will also halt at Paradip port enroute to Vizhinjam. At both Haldia and Paradip ports, the feeder service will call at the terminal run by J M Baxi Ports & Logistics Ltd. The MSC feeder service will get a 20% concession in vessel related charges (port dues, berth hire, towage and pilotage charges) introduced by Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port Authority from May last year if the container ship loads 601-1,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU’s) per call and 30% discount for loading 1,001 TEU’s and above on a single call. The concession, valid for two years, is given to container feeder vessels under foreign run, plying between Haldia Dock Complex and foreign transshipment ports of Colombo, Singapore, Port Klang and any Indian transshipment ports. Since starting operations, first on a trial basis from July 2024 followed by full-fledged commercial operations in December, the Vizhinjam container transshipment terminal has attracted maximum ship calls from MSC. During the trial period between July and November, the terminal handled more than One lakh TEU’s. Annually, around 3 million TEUs of India-bound cargo containers are transshipped at Colombo, Singapore, and other regional ports, according to government estimates. Colombo, Singapore, and Port Klang handle more than 85% of this with Colombo alone handling about 2.5 million TEUs. “Given the extra port handling charges incurred at the transshipment hubs, transshipment of cargo results in logistic cost inefficiencies for Indian industry. The additional port handling cost is to the tune of $80-100 per TEU, which could be saved if the container was imported/exported as direct gateway cargo instead of being transshipped,” the Maritime India Vision 2030, a ten-year blueprint for the maritime sector, pointed out.