Singapore, January 2:

A Singapore-owned freight terminal has set a new productivity record in India by moving containers off a ship at an average rate of 103 an hour, a media report said on Monday.

Tuticorin Container Terminal (TCT), majority-owned by PSA International, set the record on Dec 21 when it cleared the Evergreen Marine vessel Hatsu Prima.

Operations at the south Indian port of Tuticorin started at 11.55 p.m. local time and ended at 9.45 a.m. the next day with a total of 1,500 20-foot equivalent units of containers moved, the Straits Times said.

“This is the first time we have crossed the 100 moves per hour mark with three cranes deployed on one vessel,” John Quok, general manager of the PSA subsidiary that operates the terminal, was quoted as saying.

“We are confident that this will set TCT apart and reinforce its position as one of the leading container ports in India,” he added. The slow clearance of container terminals has been a major challenge facing Indian port operators, analysts said.

Tuticorin is one of the fastest-growing container ports in India and is well connected by road and rail to industrial centres such as Bangalore, Chennai, Kochi, Coimbatore and Madurai.

It also has direct shipping services to Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and China, and feeder connections to Singapore, Colombo and Salalah in Oman.