The advancement in technology for modernization of major ports and reforms for enhancing ease of doing business are driving a sustaining growth trend line at India’s major ports. India’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%. The country’s Seven Ports (Cochin, Kolkata,Chennai,Paradip,New Mangalore, Mumbai and JNPT) registered positive growth in traffic during the period April to August 2017.
The highest growth was registered by cochin with 19.9% followed by New Mangalore with 13.26 percent, Paradip with 12.57 percent, Kolkata [incl. Haldia] with 11.45 percent and JNPT with 6.18 percent.
The Growth of Cochin port was mainly due to increase in traffic of POL (27.99 percent) and Containers (12.79 percent).The Overall growth in Kolkata port was positive i.e. 11.45 percent. Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) registered positive growth of 19.08 percent, mainly due to increase in iron ore traffic.
Kandla Port handled the highest volume of traffic during the period April to August , 2017.i.e. 43.99 million tonnes (16.06 percent share), followed by Paradip with 40.37 million tonnes (14.74 percent share), JNPT with 27.54 million tonnes (10.05 percent share), Mumbai with 25.84 million tonnes (9.43 percent share), and Visakhapatnam with 25.45 Million Tonnes (9.29 percent share).60 percent of Major Port Traffic was handled by these five ports together.
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%)
At all ports RFID tagging at gates has been implemented. Besides enhancing security,this enables seamless entry-exist of trucks and in-port movement to optimize cargo flow. Entry-exist of trucks as well as drivers’is recorded using RFID card system doing away with paperwork thus reducing human interface. It 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. Logistics and Shipping Management in Cochin
