The Hindu Business Line : Ministry mulls doing away with port classification

At a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways held last month at Kumarakom, Kerala, it was also considered to treat all ports as equal without any discrimination. Currently, major ports in the country are classified into two groups. While Kandla, JNPT, Mumbai, Chennai, Vizag and Kolkata come under Category A, the ports such as New Mangalore, Tuticorin, Kochi, Paradip and Goa come under category B.

The classification of major ports was made based on the recommendation of a committee and no uniform and rational criteria were followed in the classification of ports. The classification was done based on the traffic handled in ports. However, now the ports handle more containerised than bulk cargo.

When classified in Category A, JNPT had only throughput of approximately 8 million tonnes and employee strength of about 1,500. For Kolkata port, it was large strength of employees, about 17,500.

Initially, the major ports were categorised in three groups based on the recommendation by KT Desai Committee during 1970's. Then the Bagla Committee examined various aspects and found it difficult to apply uniform and scientific criteria for classification of major ports.

There were lot of submissions before the committee for abolition of categorisation of major ports. However, the committee had recommended two categories of major ports with specific recommendation that gradually the categorisation of major ports to done away with.

Therefore, it is fully justified now to do away with the categorisation especially in view of the outstanding performance of the port sector and shipping industry and large number of development projects with huge investments under the banner of National Maritime Development Programme, the sources added.