)
The port capacity addition targets fixed by the shipping ministry for the current fiscal are not rational, a Parliamentary panel has said while expressing apprehensions that these may not be achieved.
"It appears that the targets... Are being fixed routinely without any rational basis and no connection with the past performance. The committee is surprised at the confidence of the Ministry to achieve the target fixed for the year 2013-14," the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture said in a report tabled in Parliament this month.
For the current fiscal, the ministry fixed target of awarding 32 projects involving capacity addition of 288 million tonnes (mt).
The panel, headed by Sitram Yechury, said it has "apprehensions about the ability of the Ministry to achieve the target" as the present day capacity was very low vis-a-vis Maritime Agenda 2020 and annual addition at the rate of only 6.65 per cent.
It also said that last fiscal, the ministry could achieve barely 135 mt capacity augmentation as against a target fixed for 245 mt.
The present capacity of major ports is only 696.53 mt, while the Maritime Agenda of the Ministry has fixed a target of 3130 mt capacity addition by 2020.
India at present has 12 major ports - Kolkata-Halida, Paradip, Visakhapatnam, Ennore, Chennai, V O Chidambaranar (formerly Tuticorin), Cochin, New Mangalore, Mormugao, Mumbai, Jawaharlal Nehru and Kandla.
