Capacity of major ports crosses 1 bn tonne mark

The capacity of India's 12 major ports exceeded 1 billion tonne (BT) mark with a record 100.59 million tonne addition during the just-concluded fiscal, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said.
"We have achieved a milestone on the back of initiatives to improve efficiency of our major ports. We added a record 100.59 million tonnes of capacity to our 12 major ports last fiscal," the Shipping, Road Transport and Highways minister told PTI.
The capacity reached 1,065 MTPA in 2016-17 as against 965.36 MTPA in the previous fiscal, he said, adding that this was made possible as the major ports have been benchmarked to international standards.

"As many as 116 initiatives were identified of which 70 have been implemented and the remaining will be implemented by 2019. This has resulted in unlocking 80 MTPA capacity," Gadkari said.
Boosted by a slew of steps to enhance efficiency, the country's 12 major ports also surpassed private players by handling a record 647.43 MT of cargo last fiscal, registering a growth rate of 6.79 per cent as against 4.32 per cent in 2015-16.
Annual growth rate recorded by private ports was only 4 per cent.

Among commodities handled, iron ore traffic picked up again, attaining the highest growth rate of 163.67 per cent while other miscellaneous and general cargo grew by 18.53 per cent and petroleum, oil, lubricants (POL) products by 8.16 per cent.

Gadkari said efficiency indicators in major ports are steadily improving and during the last fiscal, total turnaround time came down to 3.44 days as against 3.64 days in 2015-16.
Likewise, average output per ship berth day has gone up to 14,583 tonnes as against 13,748 tonnes during the last year.
India has 12 major ports -- Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambaranar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) which handle approximately 61 per cent of the country's total cargo traffic.