Cargo volumes at Indian ports back to pre-Covid levels

ICRA ratings expects the overall volumes at Indian ports to continue witnessing improvement and the same in FY2022 is likely to surpass FY2020 (pre-Covid) volumes. The optimism is based on the performance of the sector in 5m FY2022 wherein all segments except fertilisers have witnessed healthy Y-o-Y growth. The overall cargo volumes are largely stable in 5M FY2022 in comparison to similar period in FY2020 and are driven by healthy growth in containers, iron ore and other miscellaneous segments. The positive growth can also be attributed to the base effect since the same period during last fiscal (FY2021) was most severely impacted by the pandemic-related lockdown. The exceptions to volume growth (apart from fertilisers) are POL and coal volumes which have remained subdued. POL and thermal coal segments had remained subdued in FY2021 too due to demand contraction and while there has been a Y-o-Y improvement in 5m FY2022, the volumes remain lower compared to FY2020 levels.