technological
advancement for modernization of major ports and reforms for enhancing ease of
doing business are driving and sustaining the growth trend line at India’s
major ports. The country’s 12 major ports
together handled 273.96 Million Tonnes of cargo between April to August, 2017
as against 265.31 Million Tonnes handled during the corresponding period of
previous year, an overall growth of 3.26%.
Source:
Indian Port Association
Seven
Ports (Kolkata, Paradip, Chennai, Cochin, New Mangalore, Mumbai and JNPT)
registered positive growth in traffic during the period April to August 2017.
Cargo
traffic handled at Major Ports:
Ø The
highest growth was registered by Cochin Port (19.99%), followed by New
Mangalore (13.26%), Paradip (12.57%), Kolkata [incl. Haldia] (11.45%) and
JNPT(6.18%)
Ø Cochin
Port growth was mainly due to increase in traffic of POL (27.99%) and
Containers (12.79%).
Ø In
Kolkata Port, overall growth was positive i.e. 11.45%. Haldia Dock Complex
(HDC) registered positive growth of 19.08%, mainly due to increase in iron ore
traffic.
Ø During
the period April to August, 2017, Kandla Port handled the highest volume of
traffic i.e. 43.99 Million tonnes (16.06% share), followed by Paradip with
40.37 Million Tonnes (14.74% share), JNPT with 27.54 Million Tonnes (10.05%
share), Mumbai with 25.84 Million Tonnes (9.43% share), and Visakhapatnam with
25.45 Million Tonnes (9.29% share). Together, these five ports handled around
60% of Major Port Traffic.
Ø Commodity-wise
percentage share of POL was maximum i.e. 34.00%, followed by Container
(20.17%), thermal & Steam Coal (12.82%), Other Misc. Cargo (12.12%), Coking
& Other Coal (7.49%), Iron Ore & Pellets (6.84%), Other Liquid (4.29%),
Finished Fertilizer (1.17%) and FRM (1.10%).
Source:
Indian Port Association
Source:
Indian Port Association
The
RFID tagging at gates has been implemented at
all ports. This enables seamless entry-exist of trucks and in-port movement to
optimize cargo flow, besides enhancing Security. Trucks as well as drivers’
entry-exist is recorded using RFID card system doing away with paperwork thus
reducing human interface. This is one of the steps taken in order to benchmark
major ports with globally renowned ports.
The
Ministry has also been proactively undertaking legislative reforms to weed out
old obsolete laws and enhancing connectivity of ports
to improve their efficiency under its Sagarmala
Programme.
With India striving to improve its manufacturing competitiveness
with Make In India, the Govt of India is leaving no stone unturned to make
ports the drivers of socio- economic change and aid
long term growth trajectory of the economy. The resounding success of
IPO of Cochin Shipyard Ltd is one such example of the positive investor
sentiments. The issue got oversubscribed 76 times. Recently the RBI report has also
acknowledged higher growth in cargo traffic as well as efficiency gains
measured in turnaround time at ports which is helping in transforming Indian
economy.
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NP/MS
