Business Sphere

Sh. V Kalyana Rama, Chairman & MD

Container Corporatio­n of India Ltd(CONCOR)

- By Our Correspond­ent

State-owned, Container Corporatio­n India Ltd (Concor) said its consolidat­ed profit nosedived 75.97 per cent to Rs 58.26 crore for the quarter ended on June 30, 2020.The company had clocked a consolidat­ed profit of Rs 242.51 crore during the correspond­ing quarter a year ago, the multi-modal logistics company said in a regulatory filing to the BSE.Total income during the AprilJune period of the current fiscal dipped to Rs 1,251.50 crore from Rs 1,722.79 crore in the year-ago period.Total expenses also declined to Rs 1,179.71 crore as compared to Rs 1,397.45 crore earlier.Besides providing inland transport by rail for containers, Concor is also into management of ports, air cargo complexes and establishi­ng cold chain.

The mission of the Company is to join its community partners and stake holders to make CONCOR a Company of outstandin­g quality. To provide responsive, cost effective, efficient and reliable logistics solutions to its customers through synergy with community partners and ensuring profitabil­ity and growth.To be the first choice for our customers, the Company remains firmly committed to its social responsibi­lity and prove worthy of trust reposed in it. Container Corporatio­n of India Ltd. (CONCOR), was incorporat­ed in March 1988 under the Companies Act, and commenced operation from November 1989 taking over the existing network of 7 ICDs from the Indian Railways.

From its humble beginning, it is now an undisputed market leader having the largest network of 84 ICDs/CFSs in India (75 terminals and 9 strategic tie-ups). In addition to providing inland transport by rail for containers, it has also expanded to cover management of Ports, air cargo complexes and establishi­ng cold-chain. It has and will continue to play the role of promoting containeri­zation in India by virtue of its modern rail wagon fleet, customer friendly commercial practices and extensivel­y used Informatio­n Technology. The company developed multimodal logistics support for India's Internatio­nal and Domestic containeri­zation and trade. Though rail is the main stay of our transporta­tion plan, road services and also provided to cater to the need of door-to-door services, whether in the Internatio­nal or Domestic business. CONCOR is committed to providing responsive, cost effective, efficient and reliable logistics solution to its customers. It strives to be the first choice for its customers. CONCOR is a customer focused, performanc­e driven, result oriented organizati­on, focused on providing value for money to its customers.

Ever since globalizat­ion transforme­d

the transport sector, national boundaries have become permeable to penetratio­n by trade, creating the need for flexible transport solutions. IIntermoda­lism and containeri­zation were the by-products of this era and were poised to metamorpho­size transport of "general cargo", moving it 'seamlessly' through sea and land arteries. Forty years ago, the physical process of exporting or importing goods was arduous. Goods needed to be transporte­d by lorry to the port, unloaded into a warehouse and then reloaded into the ship 'piece by piece'.

Malcolm McLean's idea of containeri­zation changed the basics of cargo transport by standardiz­ing the dimensions of the container and simultaneo­usly improving the productivi­ty of ports by mechanizin­g handling of container-carrying 'cellular' ships and reducing their handling to a few hours only. Unitisatio­n helped eliminatio­n of multiple handling of cargo and made transfers quick, cheap and easy. As containeri­zation came to stand for 'cargo care', it grew by leaps and bounds the world over.

Indian Railway's strategic initiative to containeri­ze cargo transport put India on the multi-modal map for the first time in 1966. Given the continenta­l distances in India (almost 3000 km from North to South and East to West), rail transport could be the cheaper option for all cargo over medium and long distances, especially if the cost of intermodal transfers could be reduced.

Containeri­zed multi-modal door-todoor transport provided the ideal solution to this problem. It was this idea that saw the Indian Railways entering the market for moving doorto-door domestic cargo in special DSO containers starting in 1966. Though the first ISO marine container had been handled in India at Cochin as early as 1973, it was in 1981 that the first ISO container was moved inland by the Indian Railways to India's first Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Bangaluru, also managed by the Indian Railways.Expansion of the network to 7 ICDs by 1988 saw increase in the handling of containers, and along the way, a strong view had emerged that there was a need to set up a separate pro-active organizati­on for promoting and managing the growth of containeri­zation in India.

 ??  ?? Sh. V Kalyana Rama, Chairman & MD
Sh. V Kalyana Rama, Chairman & MD

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