Blue Economy is a catalyst in India’s progress: Nitin Gadkari
The Minister for Shipping, Road Transport & Highways and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation Mr Nitin Gadkari reviewed the work of all ports in Goa last week. He interacted with stakeholders, including PPP operators, port users and other private sector service providers. In his address, Mr Gadkari said that as per the vision of the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi, the Blue Economy is proving to be a catalyst in India’s progress and the performance of ports is a clear pointer towards the same.
The review meeting was aimed at serving the industry needs in a better way, identifying issues holding up new projects and understanding ways to improve efficiency. The meeting provided a platform to all officials and stakeholders to communicate with each other and with the Ministry of Shipping, breaking the conventional tight silo-bound approach and expediting the decision-making processes. Promoting coastal shipping and improving port infrastructure are high on the Ministry’s agenda. The Minister had recently flagged off consignments of trucks to Bangladesh from Chennai and steel from Vizag.
Overall traffic growth at Major Ports
The Major Ports recorded a growth of 3.27 per cent during the period April to October 2017 and together handled 383 million tonnes of cargo as against 371 million tonnes handled during the corresponding period of the previous year.
Eight Major Ports i.e. Kolkata, Paradip, Chennai, Cochin, New Mangalore, Mumbai, JNPT and Kandla registered positive growth in traffic during the period April to October 2017.
Cargo traffic handled at Major Ports
The highest growth was registered by Cochin Port (17.66 per cent), followed by Kolkata [incl. Haldia], New Mangalore, Paradip with growth of about 12 per cent. Cochin Port’s growth was mainly due to the increase in traffic of POL (24.56 per cent) and containers (11.12 per cent). In Kolkata Port, the overall growth was positive i.e. 12.39 per cent. Kolkata Dock System (KDS) registered traffic growth of 3.80 per cent. Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) registered positive growth of 16.66 per cent.
During the period April to October 2017, Kandla Port handled the highest volume of traffic i.e. 63.13 million tonnes (16.49 per cent share), followed by Paradip with 55.78 million tonnes (14.57 per cent share), JNPT with 37.90 million tonnes (9.90 per cent share), Mumbai with 36.72 million tonnes (9.59 per cent share) and Visakhapatnam with 35.74 million tonnes (9.33 per cent share). Together, these five ports handled around 60 per cent of the Major Port Traffic.
Commodity wise share % in traffic in October 2017
Commodity-wise percentage share of POL was maximum i.e. 34.07 per cent, followed by container (20.01 per cent), thermal and steam coal (12.81 per cent), other misc. cargo (12.24 per cent), coking and other coal (7.57 per cent), iron ore and pellets (6.61 per cent), other liquid (4.30 per cent), finished fertiliser (1.29 per cent) and FRM (1.10 per cent.[/vc_column_text]
