The Hindu Business Line : `Indian ports must benchmark against the best in the world'

DESPITE impressive technical parameters, Indian ports need to continually bench-mark themselves against the best ports worldwide and engage in policy efforts to attain prices per container of port services which are the lowest in the world, the Economic Survey has said.

Through a series of institutional innovations, India has obtained substantial progress in the major ports sector. The turnaround time came down further from 3.7 days in 2002-03 to 3.5 days in 2003-04. The average output per ship-berth-day went up from 8,455 tonnes in 2002-03 to 8,978 tonnes in 2003-04. The pre-berthing time at major ports dropped from 6.9 hours in 2002-03 to 5 hours in 2003-04.

At the same time, there continues to be a high degree of cross-sectional heterogeneity between the performance characteristics of various major ports. For instance, the pre-berthing waiting time at Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) is a major problem given the fact that the port accounts for more than half of India's container traffic.

According to the Survey, investments in the ports sector, which continue to take place at a substantial scale, will be further spurred by institutional reforms in coming years. A key area of reform is the corporatisation of major ports in a phased manner, starting with JNPT. The major ports which functions as trusts are inhibited by inflexibility in decision-making.

The central focus of policy in the ports sector must remain maximisation of intra-port and inter-port competition. This means an increasing shift towards a landlord port concept with multiple competing port operators in place within the major ports and a slew of major ports, minor ports, private ports as well as berths run by private operators jostling for traffic.

"This heterogeneity is a major strength of India's port sector. It improves the extent to which policy innovations are attempted and the learning that comes from varied experience," the Survey has stated.

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