Global recession has hit shipping ministry’s cargo target. The ministry has fallen short of its cargo target by about 8 per cent during 2008-09. The 12 major ports across the country managed to carry only 530 million tonnes (mt) during ’08-09 as against a target of 576 mt.

“Yes, there is a shortfall of 7-8 per cent in our annual target. However, the over all cargo traffic in ’08-09 fiscal has gone up 3 per cent compared to previous year,” a senior ministry official said. While six of the major ports — Chennai, Kandla, Goa (Marmugao), Paradip, New Mangalore and Tuticorin met their annual targets, the remaining six — Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), Kolkata including Haldia), Visakhapatnam, Ennore, Cochin and Mumbai failed to meet the ministry’s expectations.

The ministry, which is not happy about the ports’ performance, is planning to hold meeting with the chairmen of all the ports. “We will meet the chairmen of all ports. Those, who have not performed well would be asked to change their business strategies to meet next year’s targets,” the ministry official said.

The ministry had upped the ports targets in 2008-09 after almost all of them registered healthy growth in ’07-08. Cochin port was given a target of 18.9 mt after its cargo traffic in ’07-08 touched 15.75 mt, registering an increase of half a million tonnes over the previous year. Kolkata port had handled 57.329 million tonnes of traffic in ’07-08 -- a 4.14 per cent increase over the previous year’s 55.05 mt. Based on this, the ministry has given it the target of 60.2 mt. For JNPT, the target was 63.5 mt, however, the port handled only 57.28 mt cargo during ’08-09, registering a shortfall of 9.79 per cent.

The Visakhapatnam port, which carried 64.59 mt cargo in ’07-08, was given a target of 65 mt for ’08-09. Even Mumbai Port Trust’s traffic in ’07-08 has gone up significantly to 57.03 mt. The port, however, failed to achieve its target of 61 mt for ’08-09.

For Ennore Port, the ministry had brought down the target from its ’07-08 levels. The port was expected to carry 10.5 mt cargo during 2008, despite its improved performance at 11.56 mt a year ago.

While the industry experts say that the short fall was no surprise as the global slowdown has taken a toll on exports and imports, affecting the traffic at ports, the shipping ministry is not ready to buy the arguments. “The targets given to one port were realistic. If six of the 12 ports have managed to meet the expectations, the remaining should have also evolved their business strategies to meet their targets. The slowdown is there, but we can still achieve with little more efforts,” Rakesh Srivastava, joint secretary, ministry of shipping told Financial Chronicle.