Domestic production base for containers top focus: V Kalyana Rama, CMD, Concor

On this monetary yr, we anticipate the working revenue to extend by 12%.

By Nivedita Mukherjee

Container Corporation of India (Concor), a wholly-owned arm of Indian Railways, is among the many companies on the record for strategic gross sales within the present fiscal. V Kalyana Rama, chairman and managing director, tells Nivedita Mukherjee that the corporate has a sturdy progress plan; it’s planning to foray into indigenous manufacturing of containers and has laid out a highway map for sturdy high line progress over the medium time period.

Your This fall outcomes confirmed a pointy 92% dip in consolidated revenue, regardless of high line being sturdy. What do you attribute the low profitability to?
There have been some one-time bills that we incurred within the quarter. There was a change within the technique of charging the land licence price (LLF) that the Railways levy on us. The Railways took a choice that LLF could be charged on the premise of 6% of the market worth of railway land. Earlier, LLF was charged on per-container foundation. Primarily based on that the LLF elevated from Rs 120 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 520 crore in 2020-21. There was one other one-off expense, concerning the belongings left over on the 16 terminals that we handed over to the Railways. The asset worth of the non-recoverable objects on these lands was round Rs 77 crore and we made a provision for it.
So, all put collectively — the one-off bills of some previous pending LLF points, the write-off and the distinction in our and Railways’ calculation — amounted to Rs 280 crore that we’ve got given provision for in This fall. That has truly introduced down the This fall revenue by 92 % to Rs 24.97 crore.

What’s the outlook for the present monetary yr?
On this monetary yr, we anticipate the working revenue to extend by 12%. As for the bottom-line, I’m very hopeful of a 100% progress as a result of all of the one-time bills have been cleared off. We’re additionally heading in the direction of a long-term settlement for the railway land to place an finish to the uncertainty over the LLF. The plan is to take over 24 terminals the place Concor operates on Railway land. For twenty-four terminals, Concor will signal a long-term lease settlement of 35 years with the Railways to be used of land. That is estimated to price the corporate round Rs 6,000 crore. With a money stability of round Rs 2,500 crore, we’re elevating Rs 3,000 crore as mortgage.

Are you on monitor to start out container manufacturing by March 2022 as introduced?
The annual requirement of containers shall be round 8,000 per yr for the following 5 years. We’ve already launched developmental order (for manufacturing) of two,000 containers with BHEL and Braithwaite & Co and these are in progress. For the remaining 6,000 containers, we’ve got lately invited bids for home manufacturing. The EoI has drawn curiosity from 59 entities.
We shall be deciding on solely 6 firms, with orders of 1,000 for every. Issues shall be clearer in two months. Concor is the biggest procurer of containers in India, so we thought we are going to develop a producing base in India.

What are different new ventures?
We’re going slightly sluggish on growth plans since divestment is on the playing cards. Concor ventured into coastal cargo however that needed to be stopped due to the Covid. We wished to do bulk motion of commodities in containers and are doing it in meals grains. The plan is to start out motion of cement in tank containers in one other six to eight months. We additionally wished to start out flexi bag containers and are doing experiments in that. There may be additionally the intent to get into distribution and logistics enterprise which we had introduced and a few folks had proven curiosity.

How vital is the latest extension of advantages on the rail freight tariff?
There was a constructive progress in exports and imports in latest months, leading to shortages of empty containers to cater to the export demand. With the intention of serving to exporters and lowering the price of exporting items, we launched a scheme from April 1, 2021, of giving 50% freight concession for motion of empty containers between gateway ports and the agency’s inland container depots, container rail terminals and personal sidings. Because it grew to become highly regarded and profitable we’ve got now prolonged this until March 31, 2022. We’re engaged on giving an entire logistical resolution and connecting the top dots to make it a seamless expertise.