Container Corporation of India Ltd (CONCOR)

Container Corporation of India Ltd. (CONCOR), a Government of India (GOI) undertaking of the Ministry of Railways was incorporated in March 1988. The company commenced operation in November 1989 after taking over the existing network of seven Inland Container Depots (ICDs) from the Indian Railways. The company's objective is to develop and provide multimodal logistics support for India's international and domestic containerized cargo and trade using Indian rail network.

CONCOR's strategic position in the logistics market is characterised by:

• Relatively monopolistic market position as a sole-provider of rail-hauls for containers;
• Strong relationship with Indian Railways coupled with an MoU for providing for guaranteed transits on 'liner corridors';
• network of terminals across the country, which captures traffic at the production / consumption centres;

Though rail is the mainstay of CONCOR transportation plan, road services are also being provided to meet market demand. The company also operates container terminals across the country to both external trade and domestic businesses, requiring inland freight movement by rail.

In 2008, its revenues were INR34.17bn ($734m).*

*INR1 = $0.0215

History

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 3,000 km from North to South and East to West), rail transport was seen as cost effective option for all cargo over medium and long distances, especially if the cost of inter-modal transfers could be reduced. Containerized multi-modal door-to-door transport provided the ideal solution to this problem. It was this idea that saw the Indian Railways entering the market for moving door-to-door domestic cargo in special 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 Bangalore, also managed by the Indian Railways. Expansion of the network to 7 ICDs by 1988 saw the 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.

The Company had a large fleet (about 8,000) of owned and leased containers. These were not just general purpose boxes, but include various special type of containers such as tank containers, open tops, high cube 22 ft. containers etc. to facilitate the carriage of all types of cargo.