Gujarat has emerged as the country’s premier maritime State on port traffic terms, accounting for 39.8 per cent of the total cargo handled. The State also accounts for 77 per cent of the total cargo handled by ports outside the control of the Central government.

Maharashtra, the other maritime giant among States, has a 14.1 per cent share in the country’s total seaborne traffic.

The Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) near Mumbai handles 53.3 per cent of India’s box cargo volumes in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), and 43.7 per cent in tonnage, making it the prime container port in India.

On the other hand, the share of Mumbai Port Trust in container traffic has nose-dived from 38.7 per cent in 1994-95 to less than 1 per cent since 2010 due to the diversion of container traffic to the nearby JNPT. Concomitantly, the share of JNPT has surged from 19.4 per cent to 53.3 per cent during the same period.

Mumbai port has the highest capacity-utilisation among State-owned ports, of more than 95 per cent.

There are 205 non-major ports situated along the Indian peninsula and in sea-islands.

These are in Gujarat (46), Maharashtra (48), Goa (5), Daman & Diu (2), Karnataka (9), Kerala (17), Lakshadweep (10), Tamil Nadu (16), Puducherry (3), Andhra Pradesh (12), Odisha (13), West Bengal (1), and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (23). Of these 205 non-major ports, only some are well-developed, and provide all-weather berthing facilities for cargo handling.

In 2015-16, only 70 non-major ports were reported to have handled cargo traffic.

The effectiveness of non-major ports in meeting the growing volume of cargo traffic cannot be overlooked, given the saturation of existing capacities at the major ports.

Maritime States have, therefore, launched initiatives for their development, through the participation of the private sector. This has led to a significant growth in the cargo traffic handled by the non-major ports in the past few years.

The overall increase in cargo handled at non-major ports during 2016-17 was mainly driven by the traffic in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

Gujarat continues to be the leading maritime State, accounting for around 71.3 per cent of the total non-major port cargo traffic, followed by Maharashtra (7.2 per cent).

Gujarat is a maritime State with a natural coastline of about 1,215 km, or 16 per cent of India’s total coastline. The State has 46 non-major ports — all of them under the jurisdiction of the Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) — but traffic is handled at only 18. The remaining 28 are used for fishing activities and have negligible traffic.

Gujarat’s advantage lies in servicing the vast hinterland of the northern and central States. Consequently, there is a high demand for the services offered by the non-major ports there. The participation of the private sector, such as the Adani Group, has been significant in the development of the State’s non-major ports.

The total cargo traffic handled at the non-major ports during 2017-18 was 370.76 million tonnes (mt), as against 345.74 mt in 2017-18, a rise of a little over 7 per cent.

Maharashtra, with a coastline of around 653 km, has 48 notified non-major ports. Of these, only 14 ports handled cargo traffic during 2016-17.

The total cargo traffic handled at these ports for FY17 was 37.9 mt, compared to 34.89 mt in 2016-17, a rise of 8 per cent.

Goa, which has a coastline of about 118 km, has five non-major ports. Of this, only one port, Panaji, normally handles cargo traffic. The port handled a cargo traffic of 0.12 mt during 2016-17, compared with 0.43 mt in the previous year: a negative growth of 72.1 per cent.

Iron ore had been the principal commodity handled at the port, but due to the ban on its mining, cargo traffic declined drastically after 2011-12.

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