The biggest ports in India have recorded a growth of 4.58% and altogether they have handled 560.97 million tonnes of cargo from April 2017 to January, 2018, compared to the 536.41 million tonnes handled during the same period last year.
Namely, from April 2017 to January 2018, eight ports in Kolkata: Haldia, Paradip, Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Cochin, New Mangalore, JNPT and Deendayal have registered positive growth in traffic.
Analytically, the cargo traffic handled at Indian major ports is the following:
- Cochin Port had the highest growth (18.36%), followed by Paradip (16.01%), Kolkata (13.47%), New Mangalore (7.37%) and JNPT (5.95%).
- Cochin Port is part of it increase in traffic of POL (24.54%), Containers (11.45%) and other Misc. Cargo (1.02%).
- In Kolkata Port, overall growth was 13.47% . Kolkata Dock System (KDS) registered traffic growth of 1.12%. Whereas Haldia Dock Complex (HDC) registered positive growth of 19.63% which is highest among all the Major Ports.
- During the period April 2017 to January 2018, Deendayal (Kandla) Port handled the highest volume of traffic i.e. 90.99 million tonnes (16.22% share), followed by Paradip with 84.57 million tonnes (15.08% share), JNPT with 54.52 million tonnes (9.72% share), Mumbai with 52.71 million tonnes (9.40% share), and Visakhapatnam with 52.44 million tonnes (9.35% share). Together, these five ports handled around 60% of Major Port Traffic.
- Commodity-wise percentage share of POL was maximum i.e. 33.74%, followed by Container (19.70%), Thermal & Steam Coal (13.72%), Other Misc. Cargo (12.09%), Coking & Other Coal (7.60%), Iron Ore & Pellets (6.72%), Other Liquid (4.15%), Finished Fertilizer (1.17%) and FRM (1.11%).
However, in a report published by India’s Associated Chambers of Commerce in December 2017, the total containerized cargo capacity of 8.75 million TEUs at all its 12 major ports is less than a quarter of containerized goods handled at China’s single port of Shanghai, making it imperative for the country “to do a fast catching up”.
