Call of port

EDITORIAL

Indian ports are struggling to cope with the country's economic growth. One of the underlying principles of any successful template of development is a booming export and trade market. Equally, that export market can only take off if landing facilities to and from ports and from ports to the hinterland or the intended user, are in place. It would appear a little astonishing that such a key driver of economy should be saddled with such poor infrastructure and lack of resources. The latest Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report has slammed managements of major port trusts for their inability to follow most basic guidelines. There are capacity constraints, irregularities in assessment and huge deficiencies in dredging policy. The equipment available for cargo-handling have long outlived their economic utility, resulting in under-utilisation of main facilities that a harbour of global standard offers. To offset poor services, port managements resort to hiring new and modern equipment, which leads to revenue losses, the CAG notes. While major ports own and are able to maintain a large fleet of equipment, their availability and utilisation have been on a gradual decline. According to the CAG, during 2007-08, the average utilisation of equipment at Chennai, Cochin, Kolkata and Mumbai ports hovered at 15-26 per cent, while the minimum prescribed government norm is 60 per cent. The difference between potential and performance could not be starker. The state of development schemes leaves much to be desired. The CAG has noted that 31 out of 170 schemes planned for the first half of National Maritime Development Programme (NMDP) were completed till March 2009. The schemes taken up relate to replacing equipment where the average value of investment was below Rs 50 crore and was within the sanctioning power of the port trust boards. The critical issue of implementation of schemes relating to the deepening of channels has been dismal. Most experts agree that it takes Indian PSU ports four times longer than Asian rivals to unload and reload container ships. Poor planning and slow-moving bureaucracy are preventing improvements. A classic example of this choking red tape were bids for an offshore container terminal for Mumbai Port, which were submitted in 2005 but were cleared two years later, with no completion date within sight. India's ports are already at breaking point -- officials say capacity needs to be raised by 130 per cent to meet an expected doubling in shipments to 1.2 billion tonnes in five years -- and delays could impede economic growth, which has averaged 8.6 per cent over the past three years. Beyond the ports, road and rail systems are deficient. Poor links raise transport costs to 8-9 per cent of total shipping costs, against 3-4 per cent in developed countries. Shallow port drafts, antiquated coastal regulation laws, the complex process of getting expansion approval plus overlapping union and state government responsibilities, add to the difficulties. These factors assume importance in the light of the fact that with growing maritime trade; major Indian ports are projected to handle about 800 million tonnes of cargo in five years from 530 MT in 2008-09. To achieve that goal, the shipping ministry has ambitious targets for upgrading technology, but if this is the way the sector intends to chase its goals, then most growth plans may remain where they have been so far -- buried within the realms of files.