JNPT to invest Rs 250 cr for dedicated coastal berth

Port takes steps to improve turnaround time

In a bid to reduce dependency on road transportation and promote coastal shipping, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust plans to build a dedicated berth for coastal cargo in coming months.

"We plan to invest Rs 200-250 crore for this coastal berth and have already identified the location for this berth," Deputy chairman Neeraj Bansal told reporters when addressing a conference on "Ease of doing Business" held at Nhava Sheva.

"We will be awarding the contract for this project in the next six months," he said.

Currently, the port has three terminals with fourth container terminal being built. As on March 31, 2016, the port handled 4.45 million twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) of container cargo registering a total income growth of nearly 10%.

"Coastal shipping will not require any custom formalities. This will help cargo move faster and seamlessly. This is the main aim behind setting up a dedicated berth here," Bansal added.

Apart from laying thrust on coastal, the port is also planning to increase usage of rail rakes and shift 30% of its cargo to railways. Currently, only 17% of the total cargo goes via the railways.

"To encourage movement of cargo by rail, we have started giving rebate of Rs 728 per container per TEU since November last year," informed Bansal. "Due to this, the movement of containers by rail to container freight station has doubled to 11,000 TEUs from 5,700 TEUs earlier."

Meanwhile, in the last couple of years, the port has taken several steps to improve turnaround time by reducing documentation process and focusing on economical operations for business partners.

"with some of the initiatives taken, at JNPT we have reduced the turnaround time to one-and-half days, which is comparable to global benchmarks," informed Bansal.

The port claims that through its direct port delivery facility its customer is able to reduce the logistics cost by 20-30% per TEU and is of the view that going ahead this facility will help the port garner higher revenues.

JNPT is the country's largest container handling terminal with one port owned, another DP World operated and third APM operated terminal.