India aims to build more hub ports as population makes its economic ascent

2012 04 30


DYNAMIC business growth in south Asia has been driving tremendous growth in east-west container trades in the past few years, reports the UK's Port Strategy.

It highlighted that cargo volumes handled by the major ports of India, according to data from the Indian Ports Association. Cargo volumes rose to 569.9 million tonnes in 2011 while container throughput grew 9.37 per cent to 7.5 million TEU year on year.

India's major ports handle 67 per cent of the nation's total cargo throughput, with the nation's largest container terminal on the west coast, JNPT is emerging as the star performer after registering double-digit growth for several years.

Indian Shipping Minister GK Vasan has announced plans for port growth, to raise India's capacity to 3.2 billion tonnes by 2020, up from today's one billion tonnes through the 12 main ports of Mumbai's JNPT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust), Kolkata, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Cochin, Paradip, New Mangalore, Marmagao, Ennore, Tuticorin, Kandla and Port Blair.

The report said that Shri Vasan has written to coastal state governments of Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala asking them to identify and provide land for setting up a new major port or shipbuilding yard. The response will determine the number of ports to be developed, timelines and costs.

It said that there is also the emerging belief that new transhipment hub ports are needed, possibly one each on the east and west coasts.

According to a study by the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, it is important to focus on developing a few ports on both the east and west coasts with deepwater to handle larger vessels and strategic locations that would have the potential to reduce total transport costs using hub-and-spoke arrangements.

At present, much of the country's container traffic goes through Colombo, Singapore, Dubai or Salalah, which entails the double handling of cargo that ought to be handled in India.

It is estimated that by 2015-16, India's container traffic will amount to 21 million TEU and about nine million TEU will be hubbed, almost all of it overseas.

The report also noted problems, such as the position of Mumbai, the country's biggest container port today. But because Mumbai's JN port lacks adequate draft there is a question whether it can remain the obvious choice as a hub port in years to come, said the report.

Source Shipping Gazette - Daily Shipping News
 

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