By
K R Sudhaman
With
global trade from India now surging towards $1 trillion (exports and imports),
port and shipping too have been growing rapidly in the country in the last
decade or so. But port development has been vastly inadequate and none of the
Indian ports figures in the top 20 in the world.
Indian
ports have been short on performance parameters against international ports,
observed a recent parliamentary Standing Committee report, which was critical
of low productivity of ports, high vessel turnaround time and low draft,
preventing large cape class vessels from operating through Indian ports. These
are issues that needed to be addressed through massive investment to ensure
Indian ports became world class.
The
irony is that most ports operate much below capacity and yet there is traffic
congestion in every port, which is difficult to explain. One reason could be
infrastructure bottlenecks like road and rail connectivity, delay in customs
and security clearances. There are also tariff related uncertainties due to
multiplicity of regimes.
According
to Trinamool Congress leader, Derek O’brien, who is chairman of parliamentary
Standing Committee on transport, tourism and culture, low productivity and high
vessel turnaround time at Indian ports are due to low level of mechanization
and insufficient draft. Skewed handling capacity for different types of cargo
and infrastructure constraints in hinterland connectivity too contributed to
inefficiency. The committee submitted its report to Parliament during the just
concluded winter session.
Benchmarking
Indian ports against Chinese and US ports shows that India lags behind
significantly in port infrastructure. Seven of the top ten ports in the world
today are Chinese, while no Indian port figures in the top 20. Most of the
Indian ports do not have the draft to handle cape size vessels. The average
size of a container vessel calling at Indian ports is around 5000 TEUs, while
in China it is around 12,000 TEUs. Large cape size vessels carry up to 15,000
TEUs. At JNPT, India’s biggest container port, draft by volume is 14 meters
while a cape size vessel requires 18 m draft. Around 25 per cent of India’s
container cargo is transshipped at Colombo or Singapore due to lack of
infrastructure to handle large cape size container ships. Average turnaround
time at Indian ports is much higher at 4.5 days as compared to just one day in
Chinese ports and just a few hours in Singapore.
The
parliamentary committee, therefore, strongly recommended that India develop
cape handling capability at its key ports as global shipping industry is fast
moving towards cape size vessels. Considering the strategic location of India’s
major ports and their importance to trade, there is now an opportunity to
improve their performance to meet global benchmarks. India should not miss out
on this opportunity, the committee felt.
Though
average turnaround time in Indian ports still needed to improve substantially,
the committee observed there has been significant improvement in the past one
and a half decades for all the major ports. Average turnaround time for major
ports improved from 8.10 days in 1990-91 to 3.63 days in 2005-06. It slipped to
5.29 days by 2011-12 but declined to 3.43 days by 2016-17. The turnaround time
varied between 1.9 days at Cochin port and 4.99 days at Paradip. Chennai, JNPT,
Ennore and Mangalore ports apart from Cochin had less than 2.7 days turnaround
time.
Implementation
of RFID system will eliminate manual checking at port gates thereby minimizing
congestion. This will facilitate real time tracking of movement of vehicles,
personnel and materials. This will reduce congestion and also cost of
operations at ports. JNPT, Cochin, Ennore and Mormugoa have already made the
system operational and other ports are in the process of implementing the RFID
system.
Three
transshipment container ports at Colalchel in Tamil Nadu, Vizhinjam near
Thiruvananathapuram and another at Vallarpadam near Cochin are being set up
within the radius of about 130 nautical miles. Vizhinjam is endowed with a
natural seawater depth of 20 m and hence can attract the largest container
vessels in world. These large ports are being set up to cut dependence on
neighbouring hub ports for transshipment like Colombo, Singapore, Salalah and
Jebel Ali in Dubai, Tanjung Pelepas and Port Klang in Malaysia.
The
committee, however, felt that three ports coming up within a distance of 130
nautical miles need to be developed and strategized so that all the three
receive sufficient cargo to ensure profitable operations. There is need to
increase containerization, but this must be accompanied by increasing capacity
of terminals from 14 million at present to 30-40 million. JNPT has not
undertaken any capacity addition project in the past 6-7 years.
Total
containerized cargo volume for the whole of India’s major ports was estimated
at close 8.5 million TEUs. India had just two ports which handled cargo beyond
100 million tones – Kandla and Mundra. Indian ports record the higher rate of
empty containers shipped out. This reflects three main factors that characterize
the Indian shipping industry – high volume of unprocessed exports, which do not
require containerization; low volume of manufacture exports; and its heavy
dependence on manufactured imports. This reflects fundamental trade imbalance.
Recent
changes in the policy have helped to develop cruise tourism. Now five major
ports — Mumbai, Mormugao, New Mangalore, Cochin and Chennai have taken steps
to develop ultra modern cruise terminals. The committee, however, felt that
taxation policies in this regard must be formulated in a manner to facilitate
cruise tourism in the country. Charging cruise ships on the basis of their
tonnage rather than on the number of passengers was a dampener. This needed to
be changed. All city-based ports should have cruise terminals to attract
foreign licences and promote cruise tourism. (IPA Service)
The post Indian Ports And Shipping Suffer From Woeful Inadequacies appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
