There is an urgent need to augment port infrastructure on war-footing besides addressing the issue of higher prices of port services in India, the Economic Survey 2015-16 said today.
The government has set a target of 3,130 million tonnes port capacity by 2020 at an investment of about Rs 2.96 lakh crore, the Survey tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitely in Parliament today said.
The cargo traffic of Indian ports increased by 8.2 per cent to 1052.2 million tonnes in 2014-15, with traffic at non-major ports increasing at a faster rate than at major ports. More than 50 per cent of this capacity is to be created in the non-major ports.
There is "need to address port infrastructure on a war footing; and the relatively higher prices for port services in India," the Survey said.
It also underlined the need to address issues like the high capital costs and need for aiding import of quality machines in maintenance dredging besides allowing pre-payment of external commercial borrowings to help companies to borrow for the purpose of fresh acquisition of a suitable asset.
During April-September 2015, while cargo traffic at all ports increased by 1.1 per cent, major ports reported an increase of 4.1 per cent and non-major ports a decline of 1 per cent as compared to the corresponding period in the previous year.
The Survey said some of the initiatives taken by the government to improve the performance of ports are deepening draft to 18 metres to handle large and modern vessels, establishing dry ports at the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust and Kandla and providing financial assistance to help them procure pollution response equipment.
"The three prominent ports-related performance indicators have shown improvement with the average turnaround time and average pre-berthing detention time falling to 2.08 days and 0.17 day respectively and average output per ship berth day improving to 12,570 tonnes in 2015-16 (up to November 2015)," it said."
India at present has 12 major ports under the control of the Centre and 200 non-major ports.
The 12 major ports under the control of Centre -- Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) handle approximately 61 per cent of the country's total cargo traffic.
