India is losing INR 1600 crore annually to foreign ports

The Chairman of Mumbai’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT),Mr. Luxman Radhakrishnan  pointed out that India is losing annually about INR 1,600 crore to foreign ports since Indian ports are unable to handle larger vessels. He said: “As such, all the ports in the country must be dredged to a minimum depth of 14 meters while the hub ports must be dredged to 17 meters depth”. Since dredging is a very expensive commitment, and equally inevitable as such, he suggested: “The sovereign authority has to fund capital dredging. Without its support, the individual ports are not in position to carry out the process”. He said that JNPT would be spending INR 1,570 crore this year on dredging. He came out with the idea that the Public-Private -Participation (PPP) model could be exploited in the dredging activities. Another suggestion of his of great significance was finding “new places where the area is suitable for a port” since most of our ports do have a high silting leading to a very high dredging expense.

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