ICD Khodiyar (ICD Sabarmati) — Ahmedabad inland clearance

Scapex books, clears and follows through at ICD Sabarmati / Khodiyar ourselves, so accountability for your shipment does not change hands at the gate.

Gateway details

What we handle at ICD Sabarmati / Khodiyar

• Booking and equipment release against a named vessel or flight
• Inland haulage from the factory, by road or rail
• Customs filing, examination coordination and follow-through
• Rail movement between the depot and the coastal gateway
• Inland clearance, which often removes a day of port congestion
• Factory stuffing under customs supervision where the commodity allows it

Why clear inland rather than at the port

An inland depot moves the paperwork away from the gateway queue. On the northern lanes it also lets the container travel by rail on the dedicated freight corridor, which is usually cheaper than road above roughly 700 kilometres and is not affected by the seasonal trucking crunch around Diwali and the March year end.

Sabarmati and Khodiyar are the same place

This is the first thing to settle, because it costs people time. Customs records the facility as ICD Sabarmati. The trade, CONCOR and almost everyone in Ahmedabad calls it ICD Khodiyar, after the Khodiyar railway station it sits beside. They are one location, not two, and a document that says one while a system expects the other is not a discrepancy — it is the same depot under its two names.

The code you file against

The customs location code is INSBI6. The trailing 6 marks it as an ICD or CFS rather than a seaport (1) or an air cargo station (4). That is the code that belongs on a shipping bill or a bill of entry filed here, and the code an AD code is registered against for this station.

You will also see this depot quoted as ICD Ahmedabad/Khodiyar with a code like INAMD on commercial port-lookup sites. Those sites are mixing trade directories, UN/LOCODE entries and customs location codes, which are three different things. The only code that matters for a filing is the customs location code as ICEGATE currently lists it — so before a first consignment through this gate, confirm it on ICEGATE rather than from a directory. A bill of entry filed against the wrong location has to be refiled, not corrected.

Where it is, and how to address a trailer to it

The depot is north of Ahmedabad at Khodiyar, beside Khodiyar railway station on the line towards Mehsana, which is what makes the rail connection work. It is inside the Ahmedabad customs jurisdiction.

On the postal address and pin code: take them from CONCOR’s own facility listing or from the Ahmedabad Customs page for ICD Sabarmati, and put that exact string on the delivery instruction. We are not going to print an address here that a driver might rely on months from now, because gate addresses and approach routes get revised and a trailer sent to the wrong gate is a wasted day. If you are arranging a movement with us, we will give you the current gate details for the movement in question.

Why clear inland rather than at the port

This is the actual reason the depot exists, and the reason most Ahmedabad exporters should at least price it.

An ICD is a notified customs station in its own right. That is the whole point. Assessment, examination, and the let-export or out-of-charge order all happen here, in Ahmedabad, not at Mundra. The container still travels to the port, but it travels as cleared cargo. What you gain:

• The paperwork moves away from the gateway queue. Your clearance is not sitting behind everyone else’s at the port on a busy week.
• Examination happens locally. If customs calls your consignment for examination, you or your representative can be there in the same city rather than 350 kilometres away.
• The container can move by rail. Above roughly 700 kilometres rail generally beats road on cost, and even on the shorter Mundra run it removes exposure to the seasonal trucking crunch around Diwali and the March year end, when road capacity tightens and rates move against you.
• Factory stuffing under customs supervision is available where the commodity allows it, so the box is sealed at your plant and does not get handled again.

The rail link to the ports

CONCOR operates the depot and runs container trains from here to the Gujarat gateways. In its own material CONCOR describes ICD Khodiyar as Gujarat’s largest inland container depot, citing roughly 79 acres, five full-length rail lines and close to a hundred rakes a month, with regular services to Mundra and other ports. Those are the operator’s figures and they are a snapshot — throughput, line-up and service frequency all change, so confirm the current rake pattern before you plan a cut-off around it.

What does not change is the shape of the decision. A rail move to the port runs to a rake schedule, not to your convenience. Missing a rake costs more time than missing a trailer, because the next one is not in an hour. That makes the rail option excellent for planned volume and poor for a shipment that is already late — in which case road to the port is usually the honest answer, and we will say so.

ICD or CFS — the distinction people get wrong

Both handle containers, and the names are used loosely, but they are not the same thing and the difference has consequences.

An ICD is a customs station inland: it has its own location code, customs is posted there, and a consignment can be assessed and given out of charge at the depot. A CFS is an extension of a port: it sits near the gateway, handles stuffing, de-stuffing, examination and storage for cargo belonging to that port, and files under the port’s station. Clearing at an ICD near your factory and clearing at a CFS near the port are therefore different operations with different cost shapes, not two words for the same yard. We set the distinction out in full on our ICDs and CFSs in India page.

How an export runs through Khodiyar

1. Booking against a vessel at Mundra, Pipavav or Nhava Sheva, with the inland leg planned against the rake schedule rather than after it.
2. Shipping bill filed on ICEGATE against INSBI6, with the AD code already registered at this station.
3. Stuffing either at your factory under self-sealing permission, or at the depot.
4. Customs assessment and examination where the risk management system calls for it — here, in Ahmedabad.
5. Let-export order granted at the ICD.
6. Rail or road to the gateway, arriving against the port’s gate-in cut-off, which is earlier than the sailing.

How an import clears here

The container is railed inland from the port to the depot under a through movement, and the bill of entry is filed against INSBI6. Duty is assessed and paid, examination happens if called, and out of charge is granted at the depot — so the cargo is released in Ahmedabad and the delivery leg is local. Ground rent runs at the depot once the free period ends, and the shipping line’s detention on its container runs separately and on a different clock; the two are billed by different parties and are frequently confused. Our page on demurrage and detention sets out which is which.

When Khodiyar is right — and when to go straight to the port

Use the ICD when the cargo originates in or around Ahmedabad, when the volume is planned rather than urgent, when you want examination to happen in your own city, when you can stuff at your factory, or when road rates are under seasonal pressure.

Go direct to the port when the shipment is already tight against a cut-off, when the volume is a single odd container that will not justify waiting for a rake, or when the commodity needs handling that the gateway CFS does better. From the Ahmedabad belt, Mundra by road is roughly 350 kilometres and entirely routine.

We price both and tell you which we would use. The right answer changes with the week, and anyone who gives you the same answer every time is not looking.

What goes wrong here

• Filing against the wrong location. The Sabarmati and Khodiyar names, plus the directory codes floating around, produce more misfiled entries at this station than at most.
• AD code not registered at INSBI6. Station-specific, as always; a sea exporter registered only at Mundra has none here.
• Planning to the vessel cut-off instead of the rake. The rail leg has its own deadline upstream of the port’s, and it is the one that binds.
• Self-sealing permission assumed. Factory stuffing needs the permission in place beforehand; it is not granted at the gate.
• Ground rent and detention treated as one charge. Two parties, two clocks, two invoices.
• An address taken from a directory. Gate details are revised; a trailer at the wrong gate is a lost day.

Where to check the official position

• ICEGATE — to confirm the current location code, to register or check an AD code at this station, and to track a filed shipping bill or bill of entry.
• CBIC — for the notifications and circulars behind self-sealing, assessment and examination, and for the Ahmedabad customs jurisdiction.
• DGFT — for IEC status and the export policy on your HS code.

Rake schedules, free periods, tariffs and gate details all change. Nothing here is a quotation, and none of it replaces the current position confirmed for your shipment.

Tracking a shipment through ICD Sabarmati / Khodiyar

Once a bill of lading or air waybill is issued, follow it on our tracking page. It reads the reference, works out which carrier issued it, and takes you to their own live milestones.