Not All At Sea

Ports and container shipping are matters that are being carefully looked into in terms of infrastructure building and automation.

- Jayashree Mendes

India’s coastline is a natural attraction for sea trade. Moreover, it’s cheaper than roads. Luckily for us, one Minister has been given the portfolio of road transport and shipping. This makes his task onerous, but it’s a solace that one department can give us the lowdown on what is happening in either of the sectors. Even 70 years after Independence, India is still building her infrastructure. Though we make tall claims, we are yet to build roads in several parts of urban India to make travel smooth. So is it with our ports and shipping.

Considering the humungous amount of trade that happens across countries, ports and shipping constitute an important economic activity. For long, India has always relied on ports and shipping for trade. Though much trade happens on our seas, it is strange that the country has not been able to build her infrastructure that could be rated as world-class, despite the increasing throughput of goods and passengers year-on-year. Ports and shipping help connect the hinterland to the cities and offer much in the way of employment. Moreover, other ways it helps the economy is in the increasing number of equipment required at ports. Schemes like Bharatmala, Sagarmala play an important role in improving efficiency and connecting the cities to the hinterland. The announcement of the schemes has seen an overall higher levels of activity across regions, equipment makers and road port building contractors.

Going by statistics available with The Maritime Standard, the eight major ports in India have recorded a healthy growth rate of 3.27% during the six month period April to September, 2017. Combined, these ports – Kolkata, Paradip, Chennai, Cochin, New Mangalore, Mumbai, JNPT and Kandla – handled 383 million tonnes of cargo, compared with 371 million tonnes handled during the corresponding period of previous year.