Chittagong City Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury yesterday asked the dockworkers not to allow any more gang bookings for ships with gear. Containers will be handled for the three ships that already had been anchored at the Chittagong Container Terminal (CCT), sources said quoting the mayor.

The workers enforced the mayor's new directive from last night bringing the operation at the port to a near standstill, the sources added.

A high official at the port responsible for handling containers assumed that the mayor's new order might have something to do with the countrywide blockade programme.

However, a small number of containers that were handled yesterday had difficulty transporting them in and out of the port yard due to the blockade programme enforced by the Awami League-led 14-party alliance.

Earlier, container handling for a total of 11 gearless vessels was stopped for over two weeks due to a row over the approved operator of gantry cranes.

The Chittagong port resumed the operation of gantry cranes pending the agreement signed with a private company Saif Powertec Limited.

A total of 52 ocean-going ships anchor at Chittagong port. Among them, 11 are gearless vessels that cannot load or unload containers without cranes in the port.

These ships, also known as feeder vessels, mainly transport containers to and from four major ports -- Singapore, Colombo, Port Clang and port Tan Jung Palapus in Malaysia.

Besides being dogged by conflicts every now and then, the port's problems reached a new height as the feeder operators increased the freight of Chittagong-bound containers by $200 for each TEU (Twenty Equivalent Units) effective from December 1, according to sources.

The freight was increased mainly due to delays in discharging of goods there. The ships had to wait weeks at the outer anchorage before getting permission to enter the channel due to heavy congestion at the port, the sources pointed out.

The political deadlock and dockworkers' agitation last month demanding cancellation of agreement with a private company aggravated the situation further.