CHATTOGRAM, Jan 19: More than 100 mother vessels with nearly 50 lakh tonnes of cargo on board particularly imported as Ramadan items, are floating idle at the Outer Anchorage of the Chattogram Port due to shortage of lighter vessels.
Those ships were carrying 12 lakh tonnes of Ramadan-related food items, including wheat, maize, soybean, chickpeas, lentils and edible oil. Another five vessels were carrying more than 2 lakh tonnes of sugar, while seven were loaded with fertiliser, and 25 carrying cement clinkers.
Under normal conditions, a 50,000-tonne mother vessel can complete discharge within seven to 10 days using lighterage vessels that shuttle cargo to river ports and terminals. But the current shortage has pushed waiting times to 20-30 days, with some ships unable to unload at all for days at a time.
According to CPA sources, the Mother Vessels usually cannot enter the channel of Chattogram Port due to lower deep channel of the port. For this reason, over loaded cargo is lightered by the lighter vessels from the mother vessels before entering the Port channel.
CPA sources said, several hundreds of lighter vessels are used in the lightering of cargo from the mother vessels.
The Water Transport Coordination Cell (WTCC) is the controlling authority of supplying lighter vessels lightering the cargo. The authorities of WTCC said that currently the demand for lighterage vessels is far outstripping supply.
Sources said that the WTCC can allocate only a half of the total demands of lighter vessels.
The WTCC attributed the reasons for shotages of lighter vessels in the port to diversion of the lighter vessels to Mongla and Payra ports, as well as on Indian routes.
Sources said there a total of 1,020 registered lighterage vessels in lightering services of the Chattogram Port.
To prioritise food consignments, authorities have temporarily stopped allocating lighterage vessels to large companies that operate their own fleets. Even so, shortages persist. Ten government fertilizer vessels have been waiting for more than a week without any lighterage support, raising the risk of stock shortages at government warehouses and renewed pressure on the agricultural sector.
WTCC sources confirmed that a total of 631 lighterage vessels are currently stuck at 41 ghats across the country, including 51 vessels engaged in transporting government-imported fertiliser. Delays in fertiliser bagging, shortages of trucks and labour, and congestion at government warehouses have prevented these vessels from unloading and returning to service.
The business circles alleged that some unscrupulous importers used the lighter vessels as floating godown of imported Ramadan items to create an artificial crisis during the Ramadan period.
With Ramadan drawing closer, business leaders warn that any prolonged disruption at Chattogram could ripple through the entire economy, tightening supplies in wholesale markets and pushing up prices for basic food items.
Port users say the crisis has moved beyond routine congestion and now threatens national supply-chain stability, calling for urgent, coordinated intervention to clear the backlog and protect Ramadan supplies.
While imported essential goods are transported from mother vessels anchored in deep-sea waters to ports or warehouses via lighter vessels, a group of unscrupulous traders exploit the system to manipulate the market.
They keep these vessels loaded with goods floating in the sea or rivers for days instead of delivering them, creating artificial shortages.
Once prices rise, they release the goods from the lighter vessels, reaping huge profits by taking extra money from the people's pockets.
In 2013, the Department of Shipping formulated a policy and established the Bangladesh Water Transport Coordination Cell to regulate the transportation process.
The cell was tasked with maintaining the sequence of lighter vessels transporting goods from mother vessels, allocating shipments, determining freight rates, and ensuring timely unloading within a
specified period.
