Monday, February 17, 2014

Poor show by Major Ports causes concern

Source: http://www.sagarsandesh.com/news/poor-show-by-major-ports-causes-concern/

The Union Shipping Secretary, Dr. Vishwapati Trivedi, has expressed concern over the sluggish performance by the Major Ports of the country in the past two years, while attributing the slowdown to global recession, which has affected world trade as a whole.

“The Shipping Ministry has prepared a vision document for 2020 which is also called ‘Maritime Agenda’. It provides a benchmark on what we need to do,” he said, while attending the inaugural session of Portlore-2014, an event on ports, logistics and resources, here on Feb. 15.
The Secretary lauded the State Government for being proactive in terms of ensuring better connectivity for ports, while observing that his Ministry has benefitted in terms of decision making.
Stressing on the need to expedite waterways projects in the State, Dr. Trivedi stated: “I am sure the NW-5 (Brahmani, Paradip and Dhamra) will start operations soon”. Highlighting the potential of coastal traffic, he added that the Central Government is keen to develop the sector. He appreciated Paradip Port Trust (PPT), saying it has done a great job to resolve logistics issues with the help of railways. 
In spite of sluggish performance by the Major Ports of India, PPT has done exceedingly well in all aspects”, he stated.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief Secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra said that the State Government has offered un-stinted support to the Inland Waterways Authority of India to develop inland waterways.
”The State Government can go beyond the conventional role it plays to support projects,” he noted. Observing that the port sector witnessed some growth only after the economy of the country was liberalised in the 90s, he observed: “Trade is expanding globally and India is expanding through focus on trade as an instrument and driver of growth. So both these aspects need to be focussed upon to ensure development of ports and logistics.”
Speaking on the occasion, Chairman S. S. Mishra highlighted the performances and achievements of Paradip Port. “Paradip port, the only Major Port of Odisha, has its own successful dream run in the recent past. Among all the Major Ports of India, PPT ranked second position with a growth rate of more than 21 per cent and we have broken all our own records as on date, we are 59 million tonne in terms of cargo handling. The last record was 57.1 million tonne in 2008-09,” he said.
Mr. Mishra exuded confidence that PPT will not only achieve the 63 MT target but also cross it by at least 2 MT with the guidance of the Union Shipping Ministry and support of the State Government. 
”We have surplus capacity, that is why, unlike other ports, we fundamentally believe that supply must change the demand but demand must not change the supply. Considering the bottlenecks in the infrastructure sector, we are further going ahead with various projects,” he added.
Mr. Amitabh Verma, Chairman, Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI); Mr. Santosh Kumar Mohapatra, CEO, Dhamra Port; Mr. V. C. Sati, General Manager, IOCL Project at Paradip; Mr. G. Mohanty, President, Seafood Exporters Association of India: Mr. Dilip Samantray, Managing Director, Angul-Sukinda Railways Limited; Mr. S. Dandpat, IWAI; Mr. P. K. Srivastav, IWAI; Mr. Jayant Lapsia, Chairman, All India Liquid Bulk Import and Export Association: Mr. B. Mishra, Chairman Bait Logistics; Capt. K. K. Chanda; Dr. Subrat K Behera, Senior Research Analyst, Drewry, and Mr. Omkar Mohanty, former Vice-chancellor, BPUT, also participated.

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