Only 10% of containers are scanned at JNPT

In what should be a major security concern for the authorities, one of the major entry points into India is very poorly secured, reported DNA.

Officials have confirmed that only 10% of the containers off-loaded at India's largest container port, the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) at Nhava Sheva in Navi Mumbai, are scanned. JNPT handles 65 percent of the container traffic that comes into the country.

One of the factors contributing to this is that the port, which has a heavy traffic of cargo ships coming in daily, has only two scanners. As a daily average, 5,000 containers reach JNPT; only 500 are scanned while the rest are cleared without any kind of checks.

Each container has a berthing period of 37 hours. When that lapses, the containers are cleared even if they have not been scanned.

Goods are usually checked if there is any intelligence of suspicious material in any container. But even then, the containers are only manually checked.

The two scanners have a capacity of scanning 15 to 20 containers an hour and the process continues round-the-clock.

To add to this, manual checks are done but it is not possible to stop and check every container coming into the port as it would disturb the complete supply system and port traffic.

Once the container is cleared, there are no checks at all and it directly reaches the person or company to whom it is consigned. Once it passes the Customs checks at the port, then there are no further checks on the mainland.

Additional Commissioner of Customs Attaur Rehman said, "We have only two scanners and only 10 percent of the containers imported are scanned but we follow certain procedures and keep a check on all the containers coming in from those places where people could try to smuggle dangerous goods into the country by misdeclaring the contents. Manual checks are done and there are many new things being planned for the port which will, in the near future, help make facilities better at JNPT."

He added: "Also, we have our intelligence network and based on that checks are conducted to see no misdeclared or undeclared goods enter the country."
(Source:www.cargonewsasia.com)