India's Largest shipping Company, the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) in its continuous efforts to facilitate shipping solutions to the Indian trade has now upgraded the Coastal ports of call on the SMILE Service to include Katupalli and Visakhapatnam on East Coast.The SMILE service is a dedicated SCI Service, having 3 x 1600 teu Indian Flag vessels, catering to the Coastal trade on both the West Coast of India as well as the Gulf Markets. This is SCI’s maiden call at Katupalli (Chennai) and the SMILE service’s maiden call at Visakhapatnam.
The SMILE service which already has an established coastal market from Mundra and Pipavav to Cochin / Tuticorin will now have a direct coastal service from Mundra, Pipavav to Katupalli and Visakhapatnam. In addition to the coastal trade, this Service will cater to the trade from Katupalli and Visakhapatnam to Gulf and vice – versa and also for Far East and Europe via transhipment. The call at Katupalli and Visakhapatnam is in the interest of SCI’s valued customers in terms of providing an efficient and reliable service for Coastal as well as Exim cargo.
The monthly Katupalli and Visakhapatnam call will commence from the mv Lal Bahadur Shastri SM 280E at Mundra on 4th June, 2015. The same vessel shall carry cargo from Katupalli and Visakhapatnam to Gulf. Subject to response from the trade, this monthly call could make way for a fortnightly call at these two new ports.
The new port rotation will be: Mundra – Pipavav – Cochin – Tuticorin – Katupalli – Visakhapatnam – Colombo – Mundra – Jebel Ali
