Things I learned at the BHP 2014 exhibition in Mumbai

It is 3 months since i posted anything on this blog. Maybe nothing interesting happened or i was too busy. Anyways, here i am again.

Last month i was at the BHP 2014 or The Breakbulk, Heavylift and Project Forwarding expo as an exhibitor for my employer. The 2012 edition exhibitors were mostly transport operators but this time around mostly shipping lines and the so called project forwarding guys were there.

I would say it was a disaster of sorts for at-least people like me who are from heavy lift industry. Perhaps for shipping line and "project forwarding" guys, heavy-lift meant something totally different. I talked to the organisers and my fellow exhibitors about what they understood about heavy-lift. An overwhelming majority thought heavy-lift was lifting of ODC from a heavy lift Geared vessel or heavy lift by a port crane. A very select few included loadouts with SPMT or Hydraulic Trailers. Those who don't know what heavy-lift is and would trust wikipedia more than me... do visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_lift for enlightenment.

In my opinion the word heavylift should not have been used by the organizers in the first place.

The conferences were as boring as watching paint dry. All i could here was Bleh..bleh...

Why is India good...why is India bad...what are procedures of XYZ etc...A kind of a show-off fest for few peacocks.

The cocktail dinner was all about Cosco Shipping and its greatness. It seemed they were heirs of some Chinese Poseidon.

Here's what i learned from this exhibition. That Indian heavylift industry is a hopeless bunch. If our own related fraternity doesn't know much about us then imagine what pathetic ignorant world our service seekers are in.

Expos and exhibitions are supposed to be a view to the future, an advancement in implementation of new techniques and technology. Instead, this exhibition cum conference was same old story. It was like people had opened branch offices in a common marketplace.

What is needed in India is infusion of efficient techniques, optimum safety practices and flushing out of old prehistoric redundant execution techniques. 

Indian contractors don't have the will to do so because of the anomaly in the system. It just irritating to know that our rules and the law treats ODC project movements as an offence to the Motor Vehicle Rules and not a part of it. This makes these movements exposed to widespread persecution and bribe fest through out the route.