Container Corporation of India (Concor), the state-owned rail container operator, plans to spend Rs700 crore towards capacity expansion this fiscal, which would include setting up logistic parks, terminals and rail fleet expansion.

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Concor plans to invest around Rs160 crore for setting up five new rail terminals and work at existing ones. It is at various stages of planning and construction of rail terminals in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Punjab and Gujarat.

“The investment would be made for engineering work at the existing terminals and the five new terminals,” said Anil Gupta, chairman and managing director, Concor.Further, a large chunk of Rs700 crore would be used for procuring new wagons.

“We plan to add 20 new rakes this financial year. The investment would be utilised for the new rakes in addition to other technical requirements,” he said.

Around Rs100 crore has been earmarked towards land acquisition and other expenditure for the logistics parks. The company plans start operations at two logistics parks this fiscal. Construction at the Ahmedabad logistics park has been completed and the facility would be operationalised by month-end while another while another one in Andhra Pradesh would be completed in 3-4 months.

On a conference call on Wednesday, Concor officials said its cold-chain subsidiary Fresh and Healthy Enterprises has broken even, recording a net profit of Rs70 lakh.

Concor revenues increased 2.9% from Rs3,885.72 crore in fiscal 2010 to Rs4,000 crore in the last fiscal while net profit for the fiscal 2011 rose to Rs830 crore against Rs780 crore in fiscal 2010.

The company is targeting 10% growth in topline and bottomline this fiscal.

During the fourth quarter, net profit grew 16% at Rs201.4 crore as against Rs172.7 crore posted in the same period previous fiscal.Concor said it has been facing issues, both in the export-import (Exim) and domestic segments.

“Due to various reasons including protests, shippers prefer to de-stuff their containers at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) rather than taking it to the northern hinterland. Goods are then being moved through road or other modes of transport,” said an official.

In addition, the company has witnessed a shift in volumes from JNPT to other private ports in Gujarat, resulting in lesser leads due to reduced distance between the port and the northern hinterland.

“Earlier 74% of the rail operations were from JNPT, which have dropped to 64%,” said Gupta.

Further, the company’s empty running has also increased in the March quarter. “At present, empty running cost is around 7.5% of our total rail freight expenditure. Though it is lower compared to fiscal 2010 levels, it has increased from the average level for the first three quarters of fiscal 2011,” said Gupta.

The company has been running empty rakes on the North-East route. While there are Exim volumes moving from North to East, there is not enough return load from East to North. Concor moves domestic volumes on the East-North route; most of these volumes comprise special commodities on which Indian Railways have hiked haulage rates.