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M V Mana, the Liberian-flagged vessel, set the sail from Kandla port Friday with the first-ever consignment of the Indian wheat for Egypt after five day’s delay due to the disruptions in loading operations following the government’s decision to ban exports of wheat from the country.
“MV Mana set the sail at around 3 am on Friday after loading was completed and the consignment got all clearance from all agencies. The ship is loaded with 61,500 metric tonnes of Indian wheat,” Om Prakash Dadlani, public relations officer of the Deendayal Port Authority (DPA) told The Sunday Express.
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The vessel will offload the wheat consignment at El Iskandariya (Alexandria) port of Egypt after around a week-long sea-journey.
Loading of wheat sourced from Madhya Pradesh (MP) state on the MV Mana had started on May 9 after the vessel berthed at Kandla port (now known as Deendayal Port).
The vessel was originally scheduled to set sail on the evening of May 14 and a delegation from MP, including officers of the MP state government had arrived in Gandhidham town near the Kandla port on May 13 to flag the vessel off.
The DPA also welcomed a delegation from Egypt, including officers of the Egypt’s Central Administration of Plant Quarantine (CAPQ) who had arrived in Gandhidham to check the first ever consignment of Indian wheat being shipped to Egypt.
However, the Indian government announced a ban on wheat exports late on May 13, and operations to load wheat on five vessels berthed at Kandla, including MV Mana had come to a grinding halt on the night of May 13, forcing the MP delegation to return. The government’s sudden ban left stranded around 4,000 trucks loaded with wheat in Kandla port and surrounding area.
Later on, the government permitted exports of those consignments for which irrevocable letters of credit (IRC) had been issued before the export ban was announced, or which had been submitted to Customs for inspection or those ordered by foreign governments for ensuring food security in their respective countries. After representations and government’s clarification, operations to load wheat on MV Mana had resumed on May 17.
“MV Mana set sail quietly from Kandla port at around 3:30 am on Friday for port Alexandria. There were no dignitaries to flag it off, the initial enthusiasm having been dissipated by the disruptions in loading and the vessel’s schedule by the government’s announcement of ban,” a person associated with the export of the consignment said.
The consignment has been exported to Mera International India Limited (MIIL) to Mera International. MIIL is the Indian subsidiary of the UK-based Mera International and sources said the cargo is worth around 184.5 crore, sources said.
The PRO said that presently, loading of wheat on four other vessels is going on. “In the fiscal 2021-22, total 3.5 MMT (lakh million metric tonnes) wheat were exported from Kandla. This fiscal, around 1.5 MMT wheat has been exported in the months of April and three weeks of May so far,” the DPA PRO further said, adding, “Wheat exports from Kandla have seen a surge since April this year.”
Meanwhile, Dinesh Gupta, president of Kandla Custom Brokers’ Association said that they have requested Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal for further relaxations in exports ban.
“There are around 3000 trucks loaded with wheat still stranded in Kandla and the firms which have procured them for exports are staring at huge losses if they are not allowed to export the wheat as per their supply contracts. Around 1.6 MMT of wheat has arrived in Kandla for shipments to foreign shores and after the ban, wheat prices have fallen around seven percent in the domestic market.. The least the government can do is to allot export quota to exporters,” said Gupta.
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