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IT IS SURPRISING that the Andhra Pradesh Government decision to develop a minor port at Gangavaram in private partnership should have stirred up a hornet's nest. For, the decision has not come a day soon. For the past few years, there have been umpteen reports about the State Government's bid to rope in private promoters to develop the port. It is a pity that neither the Ministry of Shipping nor the Visakhapatnam Port Trust took serious note of it, or found time all these years to work out a package that would have been acceptable to all concerned.

The Ministry's reported fear that the proposed move of the State government will sound the death knell for the Visakhapatnam port too is unfounded. The competition, expected from the emergence of a more efficient port in the neighbourhood, might on the other hand make the authorities of the old port sit up and take steps they have always known are needed to be taken but not been to do so for some reason. Curiously, it is the Centre that has been championing the cause of privatisation of operations of major ports for the past few years, often commenting sharply on not-so-satisfactory progress in this regard. One just cannot afford to ignore what is happening in the port sector all over the world. Old landlord ports are gradually yielding their pre-eminent positions to new, leaner and more efficient ports. With reduction of cost and improvement of bottom line becoming the buzzwords, the accent is on achieving high productivity with a slim workforce, mechanisation and flexibility of operations so that the switch from one cargo to another, depending on the market condition, causes no major problems. This has happened in Europe and America in the past and in China and South-East Asia more recently. Singapore no longer enjoys an unassailable position; Malaysia's Port Tanjung Pelepas has posed serious challenge to it, with several container giants shifting their operational base from Singapore to the Malaysian port. Nearer home, we see competition between the old Mumbai port and from JNPT and, even within JNPT, between NSICT and JNPT. Haldia dock has posed so much of a challenge to the Kolkata Dock System that the Kolkata Port Trust has been forced to rationalise the rates for the KDS. In Chennai, with container traffic transferred to a separate company run by P&O Ports and the prospect of the bulk traffic too getting transferred to Ennore becoming brighter, the Chennai port has perforce to devise new ways and means to survive in the changed situation.

The Shipping Ministry, therefore, will do the Vizag Port Trust a great favour if it, instead of joining the lament over the Gangavaram decision, asks the port authorities to assess the situation realistically and take appropriate measures to face the emerging competition squarely. Apparently both Visakhapatnam and Gangavaram ports will be competing for cargo from the same hinterland but it is also possible to extend the horizon through proper connectivity. The capacity of the major ports having virtually reached the saturation point, the potential for future growth too is great. In this situation, there will be room for several players, though only the efficient ones will survive. Both the Shipping Ministry and the VPT should now find time to identify areas of strength and exploit them.

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