KOCHI: The district administration’s decision to arrange parking facility for 180 container trucks near Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) before Onam has ended the stalemate between the operators of container lorries serving the terminal and its authorities.
District Collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla, who visited the parking yard adjacent to the lake, directed the authorities to complete the construction work at the parking yard before Onam.The parking yard will have facilities for parking 100 trucks capable of carrying 20-ft containers and 80 trucks which can carry 40-ft containers. A fuel pump and a toilet complex owned by Bharat Petroleum at the site will soon be commissioned, the authorities said.
Since the toilet complex and fuel pump are adjacent to the container terminal, it will benefit truck employees, they said.The export import industry had been affected by an indefinite strike called by operators of container lorries serving the ICTT demanding sufficient parking space for truckers in the Cochin Port Trust vicinity. The strike was called off after conciliatory talks between the coordination committee of container carrier owners and Ports Minister Ramachandran Kadannappally.
The district administration had banned parking of trucks along Container Road linking the Vallarpadam terminal to NH-47 from Kalamassery in the wake accidents on Container Road. This has led to a flash strike by the truckers in the second week of July and a three-day strike later which led to piling of hundreds of containers at ICTT.The district administration in a release said the ban on parking any vehicle on Container Road will be enforced strictly once the parking yard gets operational by Onam
The local body chiefs and secretaries have also been directed to install street lights along the road in the wake of the rising accidents on the stretch, the release said.