Sikka handles almost 50% cargos of state’s non-major ports
Steering past the slowdown, Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) controlled ports have posted a growth of 34.60 per cent in 2009-10 at 206 million tonnes as compared to 153 million tonnes of cargo handled in 2008-09.
"We have achieved a record growth of 35 per cent in cargo handling and Gujarat’s non-major ports are leading to new heights of achievements," said Pankaj Kumar, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman, GMB.
The Indian port sector was hit badly last year due to recession. All the non-major ports of Gujarat that are regulated by GMB posted a four per cent growth in 2008-09 as compared to 2007-08 in terms of cargo handling. "This was however higher than the national average of two per cent," said an official of GMB. The growth was driven by non major ports like Navlakhi, Magdalla, Jaffrabad, Sikka, Pipavav, and Mundra.
The traffic at Navlakhi, Magdalla, Jafrabad, Pipavav, Mundra ports achieved traffic growth of 57%, 13%, 16%, 76%, 10% respectively in the fiscal year 2009-10 over the previous year, according to a statement issued by GMB. The traffic at Navlakhi has increased from 2.83 million tones to 4.46 million tonnes, traffic at Pipavav port increased from 2 million tonnes to 3.56 million tonnes, the release stated.
One of the main drivers of growth is Sikka port operated by Reliance Industries. The traffic at Sikka port has increased from 65 million tonnes to 107 million tonnes, a growth of about 64 per cent as compared to previous fiscal.
The new refinery of Reliance at Jamnagar that added about 29 million tonnes of refining capacity per annum has been the main growth driver, handling over 50 per cent of the over all cargo handled by the non-major ports in Gujarat, an official said.
There is improvement in container traffic at ports Pipavav and Mundra also. The containers of both 20TEU and 40TEU have shown growth of 90% in terms of tonnage at Pipavav port. At Alang Recycling Yard there has been 50% growth in steel recovered.
Against 19.31 lakh tonnes LTD in last fiscal this year 29.54 lakh tonnes LDT steel recovered. GMB had already started the process for setting up cluster based 'marine shipbuilding parks'. Recently, the state government has approves three projects. As a part of strengthening the road network in and around the port, concreting works of ports are taken up phased wise. Bharuch-Dahej Rail Company has also established under a special purpose vehicle.
GMB ports have variety of cargo handling which is unique in the country. The area of traffic include container terminals, LNG terminals, dry bulk and liquid bulk cargo terminals, SPM - fast liquid cargo handling terminals, car terminals, Ro Ro type terminals – terminals for handling of Over Dimensional Cargo (ODC), deep water berths/jetties and shipbuilding yards.
