Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) recently completed 29 years of operations and is today well and truly the primary gateway for India’s international trade. It again achieved a new high by handling 4.83 million TEUs in 2017-18, the highest since inception and is well on its way to attaining an annual handling capacity of 10 million TEUs by 2022.
The port has taken great strides in recent years, under the leadership of Mr Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Shipping, and Mr Neeraj Bansal, IRS, Chairman In-Charge, JNPT and the entire team of the port.
JNPT has taken a number of Ease of Doing Business initiatives for faster and economical operations. Some of them are gate automation, an inter-terminal trucking system linking all terminals, establishment of new parking lots for trucks, Direct Port Delivery (DPD) helping in faster delivery of import consignments at reduced costs, creation of logistics data bank to track the movement of containers and introduction of new tariff incentives for rail cargo to promote modal shift. These efforts have paid off well by not only creating economical value for the trade but making the port absolutely congestion free.
The port is implementing several steps to maintain and improve upon its current leadership status. It is developing dry ports, satellite ports as part of expansion plans. The proposed satellite port of Vadhavan will be an international "all weather all cargo port" that will cater to the growing demand of ex-im trade. It will handle multipurpose cargo catering to all future vessels with international standards. Vadhavan has a natural draught of 20 m and will be able to dock mega vessels of more than 10,000 TEUs.
The dry ports in Jalna, Wardha, Nashik and Sangli are being developed with a view to offer services to the industries in the respective regions and improve cargo throughput at the port. The dry ports will connect the hinterland with JNPT and will boost the economic development of these regions.
Under the aegis of the Sagarmala programme, JNPT is coming up with a port-based
SEZ which, it is estimated, will result in huge investments and create jobs for 1.25 lakh people. JNPT is giving special emphasis to make sure that locals and projected-affected people are fully absorbed at all the proposed expansion programmes. A lot of companies have shown interest in acquiring land for setting up factories in the JNPT-SEZ and this, in turn, will create demand for skilled manpower. So far, six companies have been allotted land after tendering and 15-20 more companies have shown keen interest in setting up units at JNPT-SEZ, it is learnt.
Source: steelguru.com