NEW DELHI: After recording sluggish growth last fiscal year amid a weaker global economy, India’s major public ports got off to a healthy and promising start in fiscal 2016 and 2017, which began April 1, but inadequate infrastructure and other bottlenecks could dampen that growth in the coming months. In terms of container handling, major ports experienced volume growth of 3.87 percent year-over-year to 686,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units, the collected data show.
Of that, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust accounted for 370,000 TEUs, which was essentially flat with the year-ago month, representing about 54 percent of India’s overall container trade via major ports. By terminal, APM Terminals-operated Gateway Terminals India moved 128,676 TEUs, down 20.5 percent from 161,968 TEUs, while DP World’s flagship Nhava Sheva International Container Terminal saw volume plunge 36.5 percent from 108,427 TEUs to 66,665 TEUs. The Dubai-headquartered company’s new, second facility in the harbor — Nhava Sheva (India) Gateway Terminal — handled 41,145 TEUs last month.
Container volume at state-owned Jawaharlal Nehru Container Terminal, which has been on a strong growth curve over the past year, was up 34.7 percent to 133,195 TEUs from 98,873 TEUs in April 2015. “This is the highest traffic handled in a month since the inception of the terminal,” the port authority said in a notice to customers and the trade.
The growth follows total throughput of 1.43 million TEUs at JNCT in fiscal 2015 and 2016, which was up 11 percent over the prior year. To handle the growth thanks to new service additions, the port authority last month signed a Rs. 182 crore (about $28 million) contract with Chinese marine equipment manufacturer Sany Heavy Industry Co. for the acquisition of 15 new rubber-tire gantry cranes.
Provisional port statistics collected by JOC.com show total cargo tonnage at major ports in the first fiscal month was up nearly 10 percent year-over-year to 52.4 million tons from about 48 million tons in April 2015. Mormugao reported the highest gain in lifting volume, with a whopping 153 percent year-over-year jump, to 3.3 million tons. Of the other ports, Paradip experienced the second-largest increase in traffic growth, with a 19 percent rise to 7.2 million tons, followed by Visakhapatnam, up 18.11 percent to 4.7 million tons; Kandla, up 17.2 percent to 8 million tons; and Cochin, up 10.14 percent to 2 million tons. JNPT, also known as Nhava Sheva, suffered a marginal decline of 1.8 percent in overall volume during April, to 5.3 million tons. Chennai took a big hit in the first fiscal month, as cargo throughput decreased 8.2 percent year-over-year to 4.2 million tons.
India has 12 major ports that are administered by the union government. In order to meet expected growth and stay competitive in this era of ever-larger mega-ship calls, these landlord ports need heavy infrastructure investments, especially on the connectivity front. To that effect, it is hoped that the Narendra Modi government’s much-publicized “Sagarmala” infrastructure program will provide a silver lining to some of the shippers’ frustrations with supply chain bottlenecks.
