Port of the Month
India considers five box port expansions - Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT)
India's government is looking at a fourth container terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT ) – the country’s largest box hub with 4.2m teu handled in 2012 – through a design, build, finance, operate and transfer basis.
Other Indian port projects under review include new container terminals at Ennore, Kandla, Kolkata and a multipurpose facility at Mumbai.
“These projects will now be recommended for grant of final approval by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. The Ministry of Shipping will submit a cabinet note to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for the purpose,” said the Indian government in a statement.
“These projects are proposed to be awarded in the current financial year by various major ports for implementation under public-private partnership mode.
The proposed projects are to create an additional capacity of 150m tonnes per annum.”
India’s top five container ports handled 8.3m teu in 2012, an increase of 5.4% over the prior year. Initial volume counts for JNPT indicate that, in the January to November period 2013, the port has already handled 4.9m teu, based on port authority statistics.
Indian ports have endured a turbulent few years, with major concession deals falling apart and industry players split over the future role of a regulator that sets box handling tariffs. So far in 2013, the Indian Ministry of Shipping has approved 16 projects against a target of 30.