Ahmedabad: Mundra port, run by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (APSEZ), has emerged as the largest merchant port in India, overtaking the Union government-controlled Kandla Port by a whisker in terms of cargo handled in the first quarter of the current fiscal. It’s the first time that a private port has taken the top position.
Cargo handled by Adani port between April and June was close to 24 million tonnes (mt) as compared to about 23 mt handled by Kandla in the same period, said Rajeeva Sinha, whole-time director of APSEZ. “We are today the country’s largest port,” Sinha said. Both ports are located in the Kutch district of Gujarat.
An official at Kandla Port Trust confirmed the development. While Kandla was number one for the past five years, it appears that it is losing ground to Mundra because of the aggressive expansion and the risk-taking ability of the Adani group, said the official on condition of anonymity.
The Centre had set a target of 97 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of cargo for Kandla port to handle this year while Mundra is likely to cross 100 mtpa mark, the official said.
Pipavav port in Gujarat in 1998 became the first private port in India to start operations, three years before Mundra. The two ports were part of the Gujarat government’s build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) policy framed in 1995.
Most of Adani’s expansion and growth has come through in the past decade. The company invested about Rs.12,000 crore in this period for port development.
Mundra port’s cargo-handling capacity has been growing at 25% for the last five years on a year-on-year basis. Last year, Mundra became the country’s second-largest port by handling 82 mt, up from 64 mt in the previous year. In comparison, Kandla handled 93.6 mt of cargo, up from 82.5 mt.
Besides Kandla, which began operations in 1957, there are 12 other federal ports in the country, including the newly developed Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar islands.
“While private ports have come into existence recently, major ports have been around for very long,” said Sajith Sreedharan, deputy managing director at BMT Consultants India that offers advisory services in the port and maritime sector. “Chennai port is 100 years old. There are a lot of bureaucratic hurdles for their expansion. Mundra’s success over Kandla shows the efficiency of a private port as compared to a government-run one.”
The turnaround time—a key yardstick of efficiency—is about two to three days at Kandla; it is less than one day at Mundra due to mechanization.
However, Kandla has one of the lowest tariffs in the world, which makes up for the time and money lost in berthing and unloading cargo, said the same Kandla Port Trust official quoted earlier.
Source:-www.livemint.com
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