Top ports fail to utilise 47% of 77,191 acres land: CAG

The country's 12 major ports failed to utilise close to half of the total land under their possession, official auditor CAG has said in a report.
"Land measuring 22,949.82 acres was identified for uture activities by ports, while 13,045.56 acres were yet to be earmarked for any future activity. Thus, 35,995.38 acres representing 46.63 per cent of total land under the possession of ports remained unutilised," the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said in its report which was tabled in Parliament today.
The audit report on 'Land Management in Major Ports' also said that of the total land holding of 77,191.14 acres, title deeds were not available for 34,943.41 acres representing 45.27 per cent of total land holdings.

It said 11 out of 12 ports did not comply with the direction of preparing or revising the land use plans and as against information furnished by ports indicating encroachment of 273.98 acres, audit observed total encroachment of 396.44 acres.
India has 12 major ports - Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Marmugao, New Mangalore, Cochin, Chennai, Ennore, VO Chidambarnar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia) which handle approximately 61 per cent of country's total cargo traffic.
The CAG said a test check of records relating to three ports indicated that 2,075.26 acres of land were recorded in ports' name. The same were, however, recorded in the name of other persons in revenue records.

Similarly, 144.90 acres of land were recorded in ports' name in Revenue records but the same was not shown in the records of ports.

It said even after 10 years of acquisition, Kamarajar Port Limited was not in a position to take possession of 20.73 acres of land since it was under litigation at the time of acquisition while JNPT failed to conduct joint survey to take possession of 148.26 acres of land from unauthorised occupation even after 25 years of acquisition of land.
"Extension of leases were made without approval of the Ministry and there were cases as old as 1987 awaiting approval from the Ministry for renewal of lease," the report said adding, allotment of land on nomination basis was made to private parties without obtaining approval from the Ministry.

The report said Kandla Port Trust was not in a position to recover lease rent due of Rs 132.55 crore due to delay in getting approved tariff from TAMP and the port lost an opportunity to generate additional revenue of Rs 61.86 crore due to not obtaining market value.
Non-inclusion of revision of lease rent in the agreement resulted in foregoing of revenue of Rs 134.62 crore for Kandla Port while lease agreement was not regularised for occupation of area beyond permissible ones that resulted in loss of revenue of Rs 13.03 crore for Cochin Port.