India ports tonnage up nearly 9%

Traffic at India's 12 biggest government-owned ports has increased nearly 9 percent by tonnage in the first quarter of the 2008-09 fiscal year, according to the Economic Times.

Jawaharlal Nehru Port, near Mumbai, has seen the biggest rise, at almost 19 percent. JNP is the busiest container port in India, but only the third-largest in terms of total tonnage, since roughly 30 percent of India's international cargo is containerized.

In the meantime, the share of traffic by India's so-called non-major ports -- those not overseen directly by the national government-- is steadily increasing. In 2007, the non-majors handled 26 percent of India's tonnage, up from 10 percent in 1990. In actual terms, tonnage at the non-majors has grown from 157 million tons to 463 million. The newspaper said that the non-majors are also adding capacity at a faster rate than the major -- 8.5 percent a year to 7.4 percent -- albeit on a lower base.

In other maritime news, the Indian government has eased requirements on the construction and operation of vessels serving coastal shipping routes, as short sea shipping is called in India. That might make coastal shipping routes more viable by reducing the capital required to operate vessels in the domestic trade. By some estimates, the cost of constructing the vessels in coastal trades will be cut from $3 million to $2 million.

We would see more movement of short sea shipping within neighboring ports. It will also fill up gaps that are there today in coastal shipping, Ajoy Chatterjee, chief surveyor with the government of India and a director general of ship engineering told the newspaper. The set of rules, he said, would open up a totally new area for ship builders, ship designers, port operators, small and big transhippers.