New Delhi: Growth in overall port traffic between April 2019 and December 2019 remained around one per cent, said the Economic Survey 2019-2020 that was presented in Parliament on Friday.
“Growth in overall port traffic witnessed an acceleration between 2013-14 and 2016- 17, but deceleration since 2017-18,” said the survey.
It pointed out that in 2017-2018, the growth rate was around 5 per cent though the figure came down to one per cent between April-December 2019.
Also, the total cargo capacity of Indian ports stood at 1,452.64 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) at the end of March 2019, more than doubling from 628.03 MTPA at the end of March 2010.
Ports such as Paradip, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Deendayal (Kandla) and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust had the highest cargo capacities as of March 2019.
The shipping turnaround time declined across all major ports and is now at its lowest at Cochin, New Mangalore, V.O. Chidambararanar and Chennai ports, and the highest at the Kolkata port.
The turnaround time of ships, a key indicator of efficiency of the ports sector, has been on a continuous decline, almost halving between 2010-11 and 2018-19 to 2.48 days.
At Deendayal (Kandla), it was 3.01 days, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust 2.13 days, Mumbai port 2.52 days, Mormugao 2.63 days, Kolkata port 3.84 days, and Haldia 3.04 days. At Paradip and Visakhapatnam ports the turnaround period was 2.51 days.
The survey said at Kamarajar port the figure stood at 1.97 days and at Chennai 1.98 days.
According to the survey, at VO Chidambararanar, on an average it took 1.96 days, Cochin 1.47 days for the turnaround, the lowest so far in India.
The New Mangalore port recorded an average of 1.93 days turnaround time.
As per the latest United Nations Conference on Trade and Development data, the median ship turnaround time globally is 0.97 days, suggesting that India has room to further improve efficiency at its ports.
The growth has come down to such a level even after India has a 0.9 per cent share in world fleet as of January 2019. India has 13 major ports and about 200 non-major ports.
The total ships owned by Indian companies stood at 1,414 as of August 2019, up from 1,040 in 2010.
