Article - 41 Week 50
PIPAVA swallows Nhava Sheva containers :
MSC Chitra capsized, blocked Nhava Sheva Terminals, polluted our shores, and is almost forgotten. But the scars of the disaster continue to haunt us. I am talking about the scars caused not by the disaster per se but by the babus and the institutions that have infected the scars, with a cold heart. The pain persists.
Due to the 'only brakes & no accelerator' culture of thinking ingrained in our administrators, closure of the terminals for nearly a week by the Port Authorities was on an expected line. Some ships carrying inbound containers had no choice left but to call Pipava, the nearest & best suited for the purpose at the time. This resulted in discharging of a large number of containers meant for Nhava Sheva in Pipava. Till then the story went as per the logical script. Soon after, the doors to hell opened with all its heartless, merciless, and greedy creatures descending upon Pipava to have their jars of blood.
There was one black ghost called 'IGM'. Import General Manifest was not filed to its perfect dots & commas in Pipava, since it was an urgent call. It was another matter that it was a mission impossible with hundreds of HBLs & MBLs to be assimilated into a local clumsy system of Pipava in such a short diversion. That is how the system works. Pipava is a different world and Nhava Sheva is another, even though they are in the same nation! It is an irony that our Administrations stand divided in an undivided India! This resulted naturally, with 99% inadequate data on filed IGMs - the latch to the door of hell. Some were filed as "transshipment'' by roads, rails, or sea. Some even as local. The containers declared as 'transshipment' by rails could not move by sea, without amendments from customs. That took loads of cash and days of delays. In other words, any flexibility of combinations was frozen by the authorities. So when a sweeping vessel did call to evacuate the boxes, only a handful of boxes could be loaded. Most others were not exactly manifested to be transhipped by sea! And change of TP status takes days. This delayed the process and increased the 'upar ki kamai' by leaps & bounds. When CONCOR readied a rake to carry the boxes from Pipava to Nhava Sheva, most could not amend on time to change from other possibilities to rail. When request was made to move the boxes by roads, the same was forth right rejected on the grounds that Pipava Customs is not authorised to do so, for reasons not known to them. When request was made to export the boxes to a more friendly port like Jebelali or Colombo and transship them back to Nhava Sheva, same was rejected on the grounds that transshipment was only permitted on Indian flagged vessels; knowing fully well that Indian ships are more like Indian tigers declining in numbers & vigour ever since British set foot on our land. Some boxes were moved by paying under the tables. However, there was low value cargo & other such cargo that mandated clearance in Nhava Sheva as per the customs directives. They are still stranded in Pipava, just like most of our neglected citizenry in this great nation. The Rajas, the Kalmadis, the CVC head, the call for a JPC & the Adarsh guys represent the ugly face of a decaying visceral like our Customs & many other administrative mechanisms that need radical over-haul & remedy. The day is not far, when an organised group will mete out instant & crude justice to these chors, by terrorising with threats, extortions, and crude penalties, as these officials themselves perpetuate on a helpless public. Sab saala Chor!
Pritish Nandy agonised on 21st Nov, 2010 (http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/extraordinaryissue/entry/india-is-not-corrupt): - "Why must we allow a tiny bunch of fellow Indians to take away this nation from us? Why should we live with the disgusting moniker, Sab saala chore?"
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