Cargo traffic at 12 major ports up by 8.9% in April

Cargo traffic at 12 major ports in the country recorded an increase of 8.90% at 47.37 million tonnes (MT) during April as against a year-ago period.

The cargo handled by 12 major ports stood at 43.50 MT in 2012-13.

Kandla port handled the highest 6.94 MT traffic during February, followed by 6.41 MT cargo by Paradip Port and 5.42 MT by Jawaharlal Nehru port, as per the data by Indian Ports Association (IPA).

Mumbai port recorded 5.05 MT traffic while Visakhapatnam Port received 5.01 MT cargo and Chennai Port 4.39 MT traffic.

These ports had handled 555.50 MT cargo in 2013-14 recording a marginal increase of 1.78% over the previous year.

The cargo handled by these ports stood at 545.79 MT in 2012-13.

The present capacity of major ports is only about 700 MT,

While the Maritime Agenda of the Ministry has fixed a target of 3,130 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% of country's total cargo traffic.

During the 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 it had no connection with the past performance.

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