Capt P. P. Singh, former President, who welcomed the gathering at the 34th Annual General Meeting of Mumbai and Nhava Sheva Ship Agents Association (MANSA) on Sept. 14, said that all the major ports of India put together handled 510.15 MMT during the year 2011-2012. He stated that on analyzing the traffic at the Mumbai regions’ two major ports – JN Port & Mumbai Port – the following picture emerges:
JN Port handled a throughput of 65.75 M Mt showing an increase of 11.74% and container traffic of 4.32M TEUs showing an increase of 1.19% which is marginal.
The JN Port continues to rank 3rd in terms of tonnage among the major ports, and, for containerized volume, it continues to be one of the top 20 ports of the world. The container traffic in JNP is further set to grow substantially, provided it is able to proceed with the planned infrastructural developments.
The overall performance of the trade is exceedingly well at JNPT, considering the capacity constraints and hurdles it faced.
The rate at which traffic is increasing and planning of developments like deepening of the channel for attracting deeper vessels, it is expected that by the end of 2015-16 JNP would attract more than 10M TEUs. We all can hope that the port would equip itself to be ready for handling such a volume, as this would require a sea change in the structures, super-structures of the port as well as in the associated ancillary infrastructures, besides bringing a major attitudinal change in the management and operation itself. In short, the port has to first mentally equip itself and also physically prepare itself to handle such a large volume.
As regards the Mumbai Port, the port has managed to hold on to its existing volume. It handled a throughput of 56.20 M Mt showing an increase of 10.03% while the container traffic was only 2772 TEUs which is -3.11% of the last year’s figure. MANSA opposed the proposal of ICTPL for increasing the tariff without augmenting facilities.
Work on MbPT’s Off-shore Container Terminal (OCT) is still progressing and it is reported that the work may be completed by the end of 2012. However, the visible progress does not confirm that it will be ready by this year end. In any case, once this terminal is completed we may see the revival of container activity once again at MbPT.
MbPT is known for handling multifarious cargoes like break-bulk, bulk and liquid and Ro-Ro in which it excels. If the port provides better facilities and resolves the trade’s difficulties, there could be a surge of number of commodities and the volume could substantially grow. Major projects underway at MbPT are: OCT Project, deepening and extending Harbour Wall berths to attract deep draft break bulk vessels to enable larger vessels to call, proving a multipurpose large modern transit warehouse with car park at Harbour Wall for attracting PCCs and other break bulk vessels and improved connectivity with rail and road infrastructure.
The former President pointed out that MANSA, after trying for long, has introduced training course for the members’ operation staff. The training course curriculum contains all aspects of container vessels’ working, break-bulk vessels working, bulk vessels working, port operations, operations connected with authorities like Custom/ Immigration and also vessel agency specific issues.
A ‘Training Module’ has already been worked out by an expert Trainer in the field. The results obtained would definitely put MANSA in the forefront as a torch bearer of shipping in India, he concluded.
Mr. K. P. Unnikrishnan was elected as the President of MANSA at the AGM.
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