In order to ease India's marine traffic, Shipping Ministry is mulling setting up a new port in Andhra Pradesh, and is awaiting the state government's response regarding the same.
"We have a proposal from the Andhra Pradesh government for setting up one more port location in the state, we are meeting the state government officials...Once their response comes we can go forward," a Shipping Ministry official said.
However, the port location is yet to be finalised. At present there is a port at Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
While unveiling the Maritime Agenda 2010-2020, last month Shipping Minister G K Vasan, had said that the government would take up the development of two new major ports in the country -- one each on east and west coasts.
Vasan also said that the government would also develop two hub ports one each on the West -- Mumbai (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust), Kochi -- and the East coast -- Chennai and Vishakhapatnam.
Shipping Ministry would also draft port policy measures during the 10 year span of the Maritime Agenda, which includes corporatisation or providing greater autonomy to 13 major ports in the country.
New Land Policy for these major ports, new policy on their captive berths.
India has 13 state-owned ports -- Kolkata (with Haldia), Paradip, Visakhapatanam, Ennore, Chennai , Tuticorin, Cochin , New Mangalore, Mormugao, Mumbai, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Port Blair and Kandla.
The government targets to create a port capacity of 3,200 million tonnes for handling about 2,500 million tonnes of cargo by 2020.
It also plans to improve port performance at par with the best in the world.
