Baddi: Companies operating in the industrial belt of Baddi, Barotiwala and Nalagarh (BBN) have been ‘compelled’ to shift their consignments from Inland Container Depot (ICD) Baddi to ICD Ludhiana, Delhi or Gurgaon because of lack of delays, proper infrastructure and other teething problems.
President BBN Association Rajeder Guleria says, “Industry engaged in import and export business from BBN are not happy with the working of ACD Baddi.”
Speaking at a meeting with officers of the custom department, service providers and members of the BBN association on Friday (10 June, 2022) Guleria said, “we have been compelled to shift our consignments to other ICDs of Ludhiana, Delhi or Gurgaon.”
The association has raised concerns about delays, higher freight costs, lack of sufficient infrastructure, inspections, bad restuffing and delay in refunds.
“Despite an overall increase of exports from BBN area, the consignments from ICD Baddi have fallen from 5388 containers in the year 2017-18 to just 2225 containers in 2021-22,” said Guleria.
CONCOR, the organization that managed the Baddi container depot, has been asked to improve infrastructure like deploying more cranes, fork lifts and also training the staff for delivering better services.
The association of BBN industrialists raised the problems at the meet that was chaired by Commissioner of Customs, Ludhiana Mrs Vrindaba Gohil, who is also incharge of ICD Baddi.
Besides Mr Guleria, other members of the association which included Rajiv Aggarwal, YS Guleria, Shailesh Aggrawal, Anurag Puri, Dinesh Jain, Sandeep Verma, Satish Singhal and senior officers for the custom department, service providers from CHA Association, Shipping line, freight forwarders, GATEWAT-ICD and CONCOR-ICD Baddi participated in the meeting.
Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh – the largest industrial belt of Himachal Pradesh, has over 2000 factories, which include India’s biggest pharmaceutical and consumer companies. Currently it does not even have a proper functioning railway network to optimally operate a container depot.
Forced to rely on trucks for meeting their transport needs, the belt is home to some of the largest transport unions in the country, often holding industry to ransom by charging higher freight charges
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
