The continued economic boom of the past few years had resulted in a substantial increase in the Container Freight Stations (CFSs) surrounding our major container ports, particularly, JNPT. The original intention of these CFSs was to decongest the already overloaded ports. And they seem to have attained this objective in the short term. All parties involved are of the opinion that the rapid increase in container traffic over the past few years could never have been accommodated unless the CFS would have come up.
However, the rapid decline in container volumes over the last few quarters has now revealed that some players might have gone over enthusiastic on CFS development, and consequently pushed the supply on the higher side. Consolidation, if not complete closure, of some CFSs seems inevitable. In fact, there have been a few cases where the smaller ones unable to attract enough traffic have been on the verge of closing down. In such a scenario, to avoid closure, the bigger and stable companies have either taken over the small CFSs or have had an amalgamation of services. For instance, the Punjab State Container and Warehousing Corporation (Punjab Conware) CFS owned by Punjab government was taken over by Gateway Distriparks Ltd in order to avoid the closure of the CFS.
