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New India denies cover to buses

Freny Patel

The Government of India's aid package to Afghanistan is going abegging for want of proper planning in the logistics of sending 'gifts' to the war-torn country.

The Centre had, during the visit of the interim prime minister of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, decided to provide 50 buses and other vehicles and material support as identified by the Afghan interim administration for rebuilding appropriate public transport facilities in Kabul and other areas.

The plan to gift buses has hit a block as state-owned insurance company - The New India Assurance Company - is unable to arrange any war coverage to protect the transportation of the commercial vehicles by road.

The 50 buses were to be transported by road and the exercise was to be undertaken by Tata Engineering which itself is keen to restart supplying buses it had sold in pre-Taliban Afghanistan.

It had, at that point of time, a maintenance workshop there. However, its application as consignor was rejected by New India Assurance last week.

New India, which was asked to arrange the war risk cover for marine transit risk, stated that it was not in a position to do so as access to Afghanistan is the biggest problem.

Pakistan is not allowing pass-through by road or permitting Indian aircraft to overfly. Freight forwarding agents have thus been asked to suggest the best route in the absence of Pakistan's co-operation. The insurance company has advised that the two governments ought to go through the external affairs ministry and work out the logistics.

"The best course of action would be to ship buses by sea to the Afghanistan port as opposed to transporting them by land through Pakistan, when looking to the safety and security of the exercise," stated industry sources.

New India refused transit cover to Telco (the consigner) for transporting the 'gifted' buses to Afghanistan by road, considering the war-like situation between India and Pakistan. The industry is not hopeful of the 'gifts' reaching Afghanistan safely if they are to be transported by road.

A senior New India official said: "We are agreeable to offer risk cover up to the India border, where we have the jurisdiction."

Should any mishap take place across on the Pakistan side, the state-owned insurance company would not be in a position to find surveyors willing to fly down to Pakistan to survey the damage, said industry sources.

"Why should we provide insurance cover when we would need to rely on Pakistan surveyors to assess the damage," said industry officials.

The 50 buses were to be driven 'on their own power' by road via the India-Pakistan Wagha border. This would call for taking motor insurance cover, said insurance officials.

"Unless we know the laws of the land in Pakistan, it is not possible for us to take exposure there," said company officials. To date, war cover is not given for land risks, and is limited to air-borne and ship-borne risks.

Many large Indian corporates have made offers to help the war-torn country. Godrej & Boyce made an offer to supply cupboards for schools and 5,000 frameworks for emergency shelters, Kirloskar for generators, Indal for construction and ABB for power plants.

While corporate India is willing, the lack of Pakistani co-operation is standing in the way. Further there are no banks operating in Afghanistan and all transactions are being undertaken in cash.

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