The rise in port traffic would be fuelled by high growth in merchandise exports driven by a buoyant world economy and higher oil and coal imports.
According to the ICRA report, the growth potential of the Indian ports would hinge on growth in world output, world trade and maritime trade.
The world output is estimated to increase by 4.9 per cent, primarily driven by higher growth in emerging economies.
While the output growth in developing countries is estimated at 7.5 per cent in 2007, the output growth in advanced economies is expected to be 2.5 per cent in the same year.
The report observes that the composite capacity of all the major ports rose by 52.4 mnt in 2006-07 mainly on the back on enhanced productivity.
With the infusion of new technologies and capacity building, the congestion in the Indian ports has witnessed reduction in most places and operational efficiency has also improved leading to capacities being marginally ahead of demand.
However, with the projected growth of traffic and growing containerisation, there is a need to expand capacities of ports further through investment from public and private sectors.
In all, 276 projects have been identified for all the major ports which entails an investment of Rs 588.04 billion.
These projects include development of new berths, expansion and upgradation of existing berths, deepening of channels, equipment modernisation and upgradation of rail and road connectivity.
"The capacities of ports need to be expanded in a big way and this calls for raising the draft so that bigger vessels can call at the ports. There is a huge scope for containerisation in India as the level of containerisation in Indian ports is around 30 per cent as compared to the global benchmark of 70 per cent", AK Chanda, chairman of Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) said.
Chanda also stressed on the need for inland water transport for improving hinterland connectivity considering that India has about 14,000 km of inland waterways network.
The KoPT chairman expressed some concern over the possible slowdown in iron-ore exports from the country but said that imports of thermal as well as coking coal will surge thereby adding to the port traffic. Apart from the low level of containerisation and inadequate road as well as rail infrastructure, the other problem afflicting the Indian ports is the high turnaround time of vessels.
The average turnaround time for ships at the major ports has gone upto 3.79 days as compared to 13 hours at Hong Kong port and 16.5 hours at the Colombo port. The ICRA study has pointed out that the trend in global shipping has rapidly shifted towards deployment of large sized vessels requiring deeper draft at ports and highly efficient modes of cargo discharge to minimise detention time.
Adapting to these trends by deploying modern handling equipment and establishing effective cargo handling methods are prerequisites for increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of Indian ports.
According to the study, increasing competition is reducing margins of ports and affecting their ability to acheive economies of scale. In addition to adding deep draft at ports and incorporating the latest in handling equipment, maintaining highly trained manpower and value-added services also play a crucial role in port development.
