Cabinet nod for the proposed two new major ports at Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal is expected before the end of the current financial year, said Mr G.K. Vasan, Minister of Shipping.
Delivering his inaugural address at the National Conclave on Shipping, he said a target has been set to award projects to create 244 million tonnes of capacity spread across 42 projects at an estimated cost of Rs 14,500 crore during 2012-13.
The capacity of Indian ports went up to more than 1,200 mt by the end of the financial year 2011-12, from about 1,100 mt in the previous year. In future, driven by the growing demand for energy, import of coal and oil is expected to go up dramatically. As this will necessitate capacity addition in the port sector, the Shipping Ministry “is doing its best to put the proposed projects on fast track”, he said.
The Ministry has been in constant dialogue with all the agencies concerned including Ministries of Defence, Home Affairs, External Affairs, Environment and Forests and also the Prime Minister’s Office to remove all bottlenecks in the way of award and implementation of projects. It has also come out with new guidelines for expeditious security clearance process, without compromising on security aspects, he added.
Earlier, setting a backdrop for the conference, Mr M. Rafeeque Ahmed, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations, highlighted various short comings of the Indian port sector. He said though the current capacity matches the requirement, ports are unable to handle additional traffic because of slow evacuation of cargo from the ports. Thanks to this problem, the present average turnaround time for ships at major ports extends up to 3.42 days. This undermines the competitiveness of Indian ports with other ports in Asia. Overall, India has slipped to the 46th rank in logistics performance index from 39th rank five years ago. “Some quick thinking is required to improve the situation,” he said.