Freight forwarder in Kolkata

Scapex moves cargo out of Kolkata through Kolkata and Haldia, with the inland leg, the clearance and the ocean or air booking handled on one file.

Getting cargo out of Kolkata

The natural gateway for Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Far East. Draft restrictions on the river mean the vessel sizes are smaller, so schedule reliability is worth checking before the rate.

What ships from here

Kolkata and its surrounding belt export leather, tea, jute, engineering goods and chemicals. Each of those has its own documentation and packing requirements, and we plan around the one that applies rather than the generic case.

Kolkata is the rare Indian export city with a port in it

Most inland exporters are planning a road or rail leg to the coast. Kolkata is not — the Kolkata Dock System sits in the city, with Haldia downriver, both under Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port.

That removes the inland leg and replaces it with a different constraint. This is a riverine port on the Hooghly, which means draught limits what can call and when. Larger vessels work Haldia rather than the city docks, and a good deal of deep-sea cargo transships. The scheduling question is therefore about the service and the vessel, not the trailer.

Tea is a cargo with a shelf life and an identity

Bengal and Assam tea moves through this gateway, and it is unusually sensitive freight. Tea takes up odours, takes up moisture, and loses value when it loses character — so the container's previous cargo, the ventilation, and the time it spends standing in heat all matter.

It also carries origin documentation that buyers read closely, because the origin is a large part of what they are paying for. Garden, grade and origin documentation are commercial terms here, not administrative ones.

Leather, jute and the question of what the buyer's regulator accepts

The region exports finished leather and leather goods, jute and jute products, engineering goods and chemicals. Leather and jute both run into importing-country requirements that have nothing to do with freight — treatment, fumigation and certification that have to be arranged before shipment and evidenced on arrival.

The failure mode is not a delayed vessel. It is cargo that arrives and cannot clear, which is considerably more expensive.

Air through CCU

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (CCU) handles the region's air freight. For high-value leather goods, samples and anything moving to a buyer's deadline, it is the realistic option, and acceptance cut-offs govern.

What Scapex does on a Kolkata shipment

Ocean FCL and LCL through the Kolkata docks and Haldia, air through CCU, customs filed by our own licensed broker, and the certification and treatment requirements checked against the destination before the booking. Run from Ahmedabad on one file.

Gateways and transit

Services available from Kolkata

• Ocean freight — Full container and part-container movements booked on contracted allocation, with the arithmetic done before you commit.
• Air freight — Airport-to-airport and door-to-door uplift, including temperature-controlled and dangerous-goods consignments.
• Customs clearance — Import and export clearance, classification, valuation support and scheme documentation.
• Road and rail — Factory collection, ICD haulage, and rail movement on the western dedicated corridor.
• Warehousing — Handling between the factory and the terminal, so a shipment leaves complete rather than in parts.
• Multimodal transport — Two or more modes on a single through document, planned around the date the cargo has to land.
• Project cargo — Route surveys, lashing plans, permits and terminal coordination for cargo that does not fit a box.