NEW DELHI: India’s biggest container port has offered training to Bangladesh port officials that will cost them much less than in Europe. The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) in Mumbai tied up with Belgium’s Antwerp port last year and opened a world-class training centre for all Indian port officials and also for foreigners.
“At least three Bangladeshis can get trained here at the cost of one in an European school,” D Naresh Kumar, JNPT chief manager (administration) told a group of Bangladesh journalists visiting the port on Friday . The JNPT handled 1.4 million TEU last year surpassing its previous all-time record of slightly below 1.4 million TEU in 2006. It is now ranked 32nd amongst the top 100 container ports in the world. TEU stands for Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit which can be used to measure a ship’s cargo carrying capacity. The dimensions of one TEU are equal to that of a standard 20 feet long, eight feet tall shipping container.
The port has ambitions to handle 10m teu by 2020-2021, after a new terminal is commissioned, and become one of the top 10 ports in the world. That would make it the leading port in South Asia. It is now fully equipped with custom house, 33 container freight stations and connectivity to 5O inland container depots across the country.
India has massive port development plans. It is hoping to build eight new ports as well as attract investments to modernise berths and deepen draughts to accommodate larger vessels in existing ports to put the nation on an equal footing with other maritime powerhouses. India is also assisting Iran to develop its Chabahar port. It is helping Myanmar modernise the Sittwe port in Rakhine province under the Kaladan multi-modal connectivity project that seeks to access India’s northeastern Mizoram state through Myanmar. Apart from usual port operations, the JNPT’s training centre also focuses on enhancing and developing skills for business development strategies and marketing.
