Cargo traffic at 12 Indian major ports up by 1.78%

 

Indian Ports Cargo traffic at 12 major ports in the country recorded a marginal increase of 1.78 per cent at 555.50 million tonnes (MT) during 2013-14.The cargo throughput at 12 major ports of India stood at 545.79 MT in 2012-13.

Kandla port handled the highest 87 MT traffic during 2013-14, followed by 68 MT cargo by Paradip Port and 62 MT by Jawaharlal Nehru port, as per the data by Indian Ports Association (IPA).

Mumbai port recorded 59 MT traffic while Visakhapatnam Port received 58 MT cargo. Chennai Port received 51 MT traffic.

These ports had handled 560.13 MT of cargo in 2011-12 while the same was 596.03 MT in 2010-11. The present capacity of major ports is only about 700 MT , while the Maritime Agenda of the Ministry has fixed a target of 3130 MT capacity addition by 2020.

India has 12 major ports – Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Managlore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) which handle approximately 61 per cent of country’s total cargo traffic.

Last fiscal the government awarded 30 projects to augment major ports capacity to 220 million tonne per annum.

A parliamentary panel has recently termed the targets as unrealistic saying that that the Ministry was fixing it without any rational basis and with no connection with the past performance.

It said the annual capacity addition rate was only 6.65 per cent which was unlikely to meet the target fixed in Maritime Agenda.

IPA